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GEORGE WASHINGTON: 
FARMER 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 
FARMER 

BEING AN ACCOUNT OF HIS HOME LIFE AND 
AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES 



By 
PAUL LELAND HAWORTH 

The Path of Glory, Reconstruction and Union 
America in Ferment, Etc. 



WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS 
FACSIMILES OF PRIVATE PAPERS, AND A MAP OF 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



WASHINGTONIANA 

Copyright 1915 
The Bobes-Merrill Company 



PRESS or 

BRAUNWORTH & CO. 

BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 

BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



4: x/^ 
SEP 301915 

©GI,A-il0700 



"The aim of the farmers in this country il{ 
they can be called farmers) is, not to make the 
most they can from the land, which is or has 
been cheap, but the most of the labour, which 
IS dear; the consequence of which has been, 
much ground has been scratched over and none 
cultivated or improved as it ought to have been : 
whereas a larmer in England, where land is dear, 
and labour cheap, finds it his interest to improve 
and cultivate highly, that he may reap large 
crops from a small quantity of ground.'* 

Washington to Arthur Toung, December 5 ^ 1791. 



PREFACE 

The story of George Washington's public career 
has been many times told in books of varying worth, 
but there is one important aspect of his private life 
that has never received the attention it deserves. The 
present book is an attempt to supply this deficiency. 

I desire to acknowledge gratefully the assistance 
I have received from Messrs. Gaillard Hunt and John 
C. Fitzpatrick of the Library of Congress, Mr. Hubert 
B. Fuller lately of Washington and now of Cleveland, 
Colonel Harrison H. Dodge and other officials of the 
Mount Vernon Association, and from the work of 
Paul Leicester Ford, Worthington C. Ford and John 
M. Toner. 

Above all, in common with my countrymen, I am 
indebted to heroic Ann Pamelia Cunningham, to whose 
devoted labor, despite ill health and manifold dis- 
couragements, the preservation of Mount Vernon is 
due. To her we should be grateful for a shrine that 
has not its counterpart in the world — a holy place that 
no man can visit without experiencing an uplift of 
heart and soul that makes him a better American. 

Paul Leland Ha worth. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER ^^^^ 

I A Man in Love with the Soil 1 

II Building an Estate 8 

III Virginia Agriculture in Washington's Day . 37 

IV Washington's Problem 60 

V The Student of Agriculture 71 

VI A Farmer's Records and Other Papers . . 76 

VII Agricultural Operations and Experiments 

Before the Revolution 90 

VIII Conserving the Soil 101 

IX The Stockman 131 

X The Horticulturist and Landscape Gardener 149 

XI White Servants and Overseers 165 

XII Black Slaves 191 

XIII The Farmer's Wife 219 

XIV A Farmer's Amusements 239 

XV A Critical Visitor at Mount Vernon . . . 270 

XVI Profit and Loss 281 

XVII Odds and Ends 291 

XVIII The Vale of Sunset 306 

Index ...,..,.,,♦,. 321 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Mount Vernon Stable, Built in 1733, Showing also the 

Powell Coach Frontispiece ^ 

Mount Vernon, Showing Kitchen to the Left and Cov- 
ered Way Leading to It 10 

The Washington Family 10 ' 

Driveway from the Lodge Gate 18 ' 

The Porter's Lodge 18 ^ 

One of the Artificial Mounds. The Tree Upon It Was 

Set Out by Mrs. Grover Cleveland 32 

The Seed House. Beyond Lay the Vegetable Garden . 32 

The Mount Vernon Kitchen (restored) 50 

Map of Mount Vernon Drawn by Washington and Sent 

by Him to Arthur Young in 1793 62 

Gully on a Field of Union Farm, Showing Susceptibility 

to Erosion 68 

Looking Across Part of Dogue Run Farm to "Wood- 
lawn," the Home of Nelly Custis Lewis 68 

First Page of Washington's Digest of Duhamel's Hus- 
bandry 80 

Dogue Run Below the Site of the Mill 98 

On the Road to the Mill and Pohick Church .... 98 • 

Part of Washington's Plan for His Sixteen-Sided Barn 124 • 

Bill of Lading for "Royal Gift" 138 1 

Experimental Plot, with Servants' Quarters (restored) 

in Background 152 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS— Coif//««^^ 

PAGE 

West Front of Mansion House, Showing Bowling Green 

and Part of Serpentine Drive 152 

First Page of the Diary for 1760 162 

Part of a Manager's Weekly Report 184 "^ 

The Butler's House and Magnolia Set Out by Washing- 
ton the Year of His Death 200 

Spinning House — Last Building to the Right .... 200 

Weekly Report on the Work of the Spinners .... 230 

The Flower Garden 264' 

A Page from a Cash Memorandum Book 286 

One of Washington's Tavern Bills ....... 300 



GEORGE WASHINGTON; 
FARMER 



GEORGE WASHINGTON: 
FARMER 

CHAPTER I 

A MAN IN LOVE WITH THE SOIL 

ONE December day in the year 1788 a Vir- 
ginia gentleman sat before his desk in his 
mansion beside the Potomac writing a letter. He 
was a man of fifty-six, evidently tall and of strong 
figure, but with shoulders a trifle stooped, enor- 
mously large hands and feet, sparse grayish-chest- 
nut hair, a countenance somewhat marred by lines 
of care and marks of smallpox, withal benevolent 
and honest-looking — the kind of man to whom one 
could intrust the inheritance of a child with the 
certainty that it would be carefully administered 
and scrupulously accounted for to the very last six- 
pence. 

The letter was addressed to an Englishman, by 
1 



2 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

name Arthur Young, the foremost scientific farmer 
of his day, editor of the Annals of Agriculture, 
author of many books, of which the best remem- 
bered is his Travels in France on the eve of the 
French Revolution, which is still read by every stu- 
dent of that stirring era. 

"The more I am acquainted with agricultural af- 
fairs," such were the words that flowed from the 
writer's pen, "the better I am pleased with them; 
insomuch, that I can no where find so great satisfac- 
tion as in those innocent and useful pursuits. In in- 
dulging these feelings I am led to reflect how much 
more delightful to an undebauched mind is the task 
of making improvements on the earth than all the 
vain glory which can be acquired from ravaging it, 
by the most uninterrupted career of conquests." 

Thus wrote George Washington in the fulness of 
years, honors and experience. Surely in this age of 
crimson mists we can echo his correspondent that 
it was a "noble sentiment, which does honor to the 
heart of this truly great man." Happy America to 
have had such a philosopher as a father ! 

"I think with you that the life of a husbandman 
is the most delectable," he wrote on another occasion 
to the same friend. "It is honorable, it is amusing, 



IN LOVE WITH THE SOIL 3 

and, with judicious management, it is profitable. To 
see plants rise from the earth and flourish by the 
superior skill and bounty of the laborer fills a con- 
templative mind with ideas which are more easy to 
be conceived than expressed." 

The earliest Washington arms had blazoned upon 
it "3 Cinque foiles," which was the herald's way of 
saying that the bearer owned land and was a farmer. 
When Washington made a book-plate he added to 
the old design spears of wheat to indicate what he 
once called "the most favorite amusement of my 
life." Evidently he had no fear of being called a 
"clodhopper" or a "hayseed !" 

Nor was his enthusiasm for agriculture the eva- 
nescent enthusiasm of the man who in middle age 
buys a farm as a plaything and tries for the first 
time the costly experiment of cultivating the soil. 
He was born on a plantation, was brought up in the 
country and until manhood he had never even seen a 
town of five thousand people. First he was a sur- 
veyor, and so careful and painstaking was he that 
his work still stands the test. Later he became a 
soldier, and there is evidence to show that at first 
he enjoyed the life and for a time had military am- 
bitions. When Braddock's expedition was preparing 



4 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

he chafed at the prospect of inaction and welcomed 
the offer to join the general's staff, but the bitter 
experiences of the next few years, when he had 
charge of the herculean task of protecting the set- 
tlers upon the "cold and Barren Frontiers . . . 
from the cruel Incursions of a crafty Savage Ene- 
my," destroyed his illusions about war. After the 
capture of Fort Duquesne had freed Virginia from 
danger he resigned his commission, married and 
made a home. Soon after he wrote to an English 
kinsman who had invited him to visit London : "I 
am now I believe fixed at this seat with an agreeable 
Consort for Life. And hope to find more happiness 
in retirement than I ever experienced amidst a wide 
bustling world." 

Thereafter he quitted the quiet life always with 
reluctance. Amid long and trying years he con- 
stantly looked forward to the day when he could lay 
down his burden and retire to the peace and freedom 
of Mount Vernon, there to take up again the task 
of farming. As Commander-in-Chief of the Armies 
of the Revolution and as first President of the Re- 
public he gave the best that was in him — and it was 
always good enough — but more from a sense of 
duty than because of any real enthusiasm for the 



IN LOVE WITH THE SOIL 5 

role of either soldier or statesman. We can well 
believe that it was with heartfelt satisfaction that 
soon after independence was at last assured he wrote 
to his old comrade-in-arms the Marquis de Chas- 
tellux: "I am at length become a private citizen 
on the banks of the Potomac, where under my own 
vine and fig-tree free from the bustle of a camp and 
the intrigues of a court, I shall view the busy world 
with calm indifference, and with serenity of mind, 
which the soldier in pursuit of glory, and the states- 
man of a name, have not leisure to enjoy." 

Years before as a boy he had copied into a 
wonderful copy-book that is still preserved in the 
Library of Congress some verses that set forth 
pretty accurately his ideal of life — an ideal influ- 
enced, may we not believe, in those impressionable 
years by these very lines. These are the verses — one 
can not call them poetry — just as I copied them 
after the clear boyish hand from the time-yellowed 
page : 

TRUE HAPPINESS 

These are the things, which once possess'd 
Will make a life that's truly bless'd 
A good Estate on healthy Soil, 
Not Got by Vice nor yet by toil; 



6 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

Round a warm Fire, a pleasant Joke, 
With Chimney ever free from Smoke: 
A strength entire, a Sparkling Bowl, 
A quiet Wife, a quiet Soul, 
A Mind, as well as body, whole 
Prudent Simplicity, constant Friend, 
A Diet which no art Commends; 
A Merry Night without much Drinking 
A happy Thought without much Thinking ; 
Each Night by Quiet Sleep made Short 
A Will to be but what thou art : 
Possess'd of these, all else defy 
And neither wish nor fear to Die 

These are things, which once Possess'd 
Will make a life that's truly bless'd. 

George Washington did not affect the role of a 
Cincinnatus ; he took it in all sincerity and simple- 
ness of heart because he loved it. 

Nor was he the type of farmer — of whom we 
have too many — content to vegetate like a lower 
organism, making scarcely more mental effort than 
one of his own potatoes, parsnips or pumpkins. As 
the pages that follow will reveal, he was one of the 
first American experimental agriculturists, always 
alert for better methods, willing to take any amount 
of pains to find the best fertilizer, the best way to 



IN LOVE WITH THE SOIL 7 

avoid plant diseases, the best methods of cultivation, 
and he once declared that he had little patience with 
those content to tread the ruts their fathers trod. 
If he were alive to-day, we may be sure that he 
would be an active worker in farmers* institutes, 
an eager visitor to agricultural colleges, a reader of 
scientific reports and an enthusiastic promoter of 
anything tending to better American farming and 
farm life. 



CHAPTER II 

BUILDING AN ESTATE 

A UGUSTINE WASHINGTON was a planter 
j\ who owned thousands of acres of land, most 
of it unimproved, besides an interest in some small 
iron works, but he had been twice married and at 
his death left two broods of children to be pro- 
vided for. George, a younger son — which implied 
a great deal in those days of entail and primogeni- 
ture — received the farm on the Rappahannock on 
which his father lived, amounting to two hundred 
and eighty acres, a share of the land lying on Deep 
Run, three lots in Frederick, a few negro slaves and 
a quarter of the residuary estate. He was also given 
a reversionary interest in Mount Vernon, be- 
queathed to his half-brother Lawrence. The total 
value of his inheritance was small, and, as Virginia 
landed fortunes went, he was left poorly provided 
for. 

Much of Washington's youth was spent with 
8 



BUILDING AN ESTATE 9 

Lawrence at Mount Vernon, and as an aside it may 
be remarked here that the main moulding influence 
in his Hfe was probably cast by this high-minded 
brother, who was a soldier and man of the world. 
By the time he was sixteen the boy was on the fron- 
tier helping Lord Thomas Fairfax to survey the 
princely domain that belonged to his lordship, and 
received in payment therefor sometimes as much as 
a doubloon a day. In 1748 he patented five hundred 
fifty acres of wild land in Frederick County, "My 
Bullskin Plantation" he usually called it, payment 
being made by surveying. In 1750 he had funds 
sufficient to buy four hundred fifty-six acres of land 
of one James McCracken, paying therefor one hun- 
dred twelve pounds. Two years later for one 
hundred fifteen pounds he bought five hundred fifty- 
two acres on the south fork of Bullskin Creek from 
Captain George Johnston. In 1757 he acquired from 
a certain Darrell five hundred acres on Dogue Run 
near Mount Vernon, paying three hundred fifty 
pounds. 

It is evident, therefore, that very early he ac- 
quired the "land hunger" to which most of the Vir- 
ginians of his day were subject, as a heritage from 



10 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

their English ancestry. In the England of that day, 
in fact, no one except a churchman could hope to 
attain much of a position in the world unless he was 
the owner of land, and until the passage of the 
great Reform Bill in 1832 he could not even vote 
unless he held land worth forty shillings a year. In 
Virginia likewise it was the landholder who enjoyed 
distinction and consideration, who was sent to the 
House of Burgesses and was bowed and scraped to 
as his coach bumped along over the miserable roads. 
The movement to cities did not begin until after the 
Industrial Revolution, and people still held the 
healthy notion that the country was the proper place 
in which to live a normal human existence. 

In 1752 Lawrence Washington died. As already 
stated, he was the proprietor by inheritance of 
Mount Vernon, then an estate of two thousand five 
hundred acres which had been in the Washington 
family since 1674, being a grant from Lord Cul- 
peper. Lawrence had fought against the Spaniards 
in the conflict sometimes known as the war of Jen- 
kins's Ear, and in the disastrous siege of Cartagena 
had served under Admiral Vernon, after whom he 
later named his estate. He married Anne Fairfax, 
daughter of Sir William Fairfax, and for her built 




Mount Vernon, 
Showing Kitchen to the Left and Covered Way Leading to It 




from a painting by T. P. Rossitcr and L. R. Mi.jnu, 

The Washington Family 



BUILDING AN ESTATE 11 

on his estate a new residence, containing eight 
rooms, four to each floor, with a large chimney at 
each end. 

Lawrence Washington was the father of four chil- 
dren, but only an infant daughter, Sarah, survived 
him, and she died soon after him. By the terms 
of his father's and Lawrence's wills George Wash- 
ington, after the death of this child, became the ul- 
timate inheritor of the Mount Vernon estate, but, 
contrary to the common idea, Anne Fairfax Wash- 
ington, who soon married George Lee, retained a 
life interest. On December 17, 1754, however, the 
Lees executed a deed granting said life interest to 
George Washington in consideration of an annual 
payment during Anne Lee's lifetime of fifteen thou- 
sand pounds of tobacco or the equivalent in current 
money.* Mrs. Lee died in 1761 and thereafter 
Washington owned the estate absolutely. That it 
was by no means so valuable at that time as its size 
would indicate is shown by the smallness of the 
rent he paid, never more than four hundred sixty- 
five dollars a year. Many eighty-acre farms rent for 
that much to-day and even for more. 

* From entries in Washington's account book we know that 
this equivalent in 1755 was i93.15 ; during each of the next 
fgur jrears it was £87.10, and for 1760 it was £81.5, 



12 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

Up to 1759 Washington was so constantly en- 
gaged in fighting the French and Indians that he 
had httle time and opportunity to look after his 
private affairs and in consequence they suffered. In 
1757 he wrote from the Shenandoah Valley to an 
English agent that he should have some tobacco to 
sell, but could not say whether he did have or not. 
His pay hardly sufficed for his personal expenses 
and on the disastrous Fort Necessity and Braddock 
campaigns he lost his horses and baggage. Owing 
to his absence from home, his affairs fell into great 
disorder from which they were extricated by a for- 
tunate stroke. 

This stroke consisted in his marriage to Martha 
Custis, relict of the wealthy Daniel Parke Custis. 
The story of his wooing the young widow has been 
often told with many variations and fanciful em- 
bellishments, but of a few facts we are certain. 
From a worldly point of view Mrs. Custis was the 
most desirable woman in all Virginia, and the young 
officer, though not as yet a victor in many battles, 
had fought gallantly, possessed the confidence of the 
Colony and formed a shining exception to most of 
the tidewater aristocracy who continued to hunt the 
fox and guzzle Madeira while a cruel foe was harry- 



BUILDING AN ESTATE 13 

ing the western border. Matters moved forward 
with the rapidity traditional in similar cases and in 
about three weeks and before the Colonel left to join 
Forbes in the final expedition against Fort Duquesne 
the little widow had been wooed and won. After his 
return from that expedition Washington resigned 
his commission and on the 6th of January, 1759, 
they were married at her "White House" on York 
River and spent their honeymoon at her "Six Chim- 
ney House" in Williamsburg. 

The young groom and farmer — as he would now 
have styled himself — was at this time not quite 
twenty-seven years old, six feet two inches high, 
straight as an Indian and weighed about one hun- 
dred and seventy-five pounds. His bones and joints 
were large, as were his hands and feet. He was 
wide-shouldered but somewhat flat-chested, neat- 
waisted but broad across the hips, with long arms 
and legs. His skin was rather pale and colorless and 
easily burned by the sun, and his hair, a chestnut 
brown, he usually wore in a queue. His mouth was 
large and generally firmly closed and the teeth were 
already somewhat defective. His countenance as a 
whole was pleasing, benevolent and commanding, 
and in conversation he looked one full in the face 



14 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

and was deliberate, deferential and engaging. His 
voice was agreeable rather than strong. His de- 
meanor at all times was composed and dignified, his 
movements and gestures graceful, his walk majestic 
and he was a superb horseman.* 

The bride brought her husband a "little progeny" 
consisting of two interesting stepchildren; also prop- 
erty worth about a hundred thousand dollars, in- 
cluding many negro slaves, money on bond and stock 
in the Bank of England. Soon we find him sending 
certificates of the marriage to the English agents of 
the Custis estate and announcing to them that the 
management of the whole would be in his hands. 

The dower negroes were kept separate from those 
owned by himself, but otherwise he seems to have 
made little distinction between his own and Mrs. 
Washington's property, which was now, in fact, by 
Virginia law his own. When Martha wanted money 
she applied to him for it. Now and then in his cash 
memorandum books we come upon such entries as, 
"By Cash to Mrs. Washington for Pocket Money 
£4." As a rule, if there were any purchases to be 
made, she let George do it and, if we may judge 



♦Adapted from a description written by his comrade- 
in-arms, George Mercer, 



BUILDING AN ESTATE 15 

from the long list of tabby colored velvet gowns, 
silk hose, satin shoes, "Fashionable Summer Cloaks 
& Hatts," and similar articles ordered from the Eng- 
lish agents she had no reason to complain that her 
husband was niggardly or a poor provider. If her 
"Old Man" — for she sometimes called him that — 
failed in anything she desired, tradition says that 
the little lady was in the habit of taking hold of a 
button of his coat and hanging on until he had 
promised to comply. 

He managed the property of the two children 
with great care and fidelity, keeping a scrupulous ac- 
count in a "marble colour'd folio Book" of every 
penny received or expended in their behalf and mak- 
ing a yearly report to the general court of his stew- 
ardship. How minute this account was is indicated 
by an entry in his cash memorandum book for Au- 
gust 21, 1772 : "Charge Miss Custis with a hair Pin 
mended by C. Turner" one shilling. Her death (of 
"Fitts") in 1773 added about ten thousand pounds 
to Mrs. Washington's property, which meant to his 
own. 

There can be no question that the fortune he ac- 
quired by the Custis alliance proved of great ad- 
vantage to him in his future career, for it helped to 



16 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

make him independent as regards money consider- 
ations. He might never have become the Father of 
His Country without it. Some of his contempo- 
raries, including jealous-hearted John Adams, seem 
to have realized this, and tradition says that old 
David Burnes, the crusty Scotsman who owned part 
of the land on which the Federal City was laid out, 
once ventured to growl to the President: "Now 
what would ye ha' been had ye not married the 
widow Custis?" But this was a narrow view of the 
matter, for Washington was known throughout the 
Colonies before he married the Custis pounds ster- 
ling and was a man of too much natural ability not 
to have made a mark in later life, though possibly 
not so high a one. Besides, as will be explained in 
detail later, much of the Custis money was lost dur- 
ing the Revolution as a result of the depreciation in 
the currency. 

Following his marriage Washington added largely 
to his estate, both in the neighborhood of Mount 
Vernon and elsewhere. In 1759 he bought of his 
friend Bryan Fairfax two hundred and seventy-five 
acres on Difficult Run, and about the same time 
from his neighbor, the celebrated George Mason of 
Gunston Hall, he acquired one hundred acres next 



BUILDING AN ESTATE 17 

that already bought of Darrell. Negotiations en- 
tered into with a certain CHfton for the purchase of 
a tract of one thousand eight hundred six acres 
called Brents was productive of much annoyance. 
Clifton agreed in February, 1760, to sell the ground 
for one thousand one hundred fifty pounds, but 
later, "under pretence of his wife not consenting to 
acknowledge her right of dower wanted to disengage 
himself . . . and by his shuffling behavior con- 
vinced me of his being the trifling body repre- 
sented." Washington heard presently that Clifton 
had sold the land to another man for one thousand 
two hundred pounds, which fully "unravelled his 
conduct . . . and convinced me that he was 
nothing less than a thorough paced rascal." Ulti- 
mately Washington acquired Brents, but had to pay 
one thousand two hundred ten pounds for it. 

During the next few years he acquired other 
tracts, notably the Posey plantation just below 
Mount Vernon and later often called by him the 
Ferry Farm. With it he acquired a ferry to the 
Maryland shore and a fishery, both of which indus- 
tries he continued. 

By 1771 he paid quit rents upon an estate of five 
thousand five hundred eighteen acres in Fairfax 



18 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

County ; on two thousand four hundred ninety-eight 
acres in Frederick County; on one thousand two 
hundred fifty acres in King George ; on two hundred 
forty in Hampshire; on two hundred seventy-five 
in Loudoun; on two thousand six hundred eighty- 
two in Loudoun Faquier — in all, twelve thousand 
four hundred sixty-three acres. The quit rent was 
two shillings and sixpence per hundred acres and 
amounted to £15.11.7. 

In addition to these lands in the settled parts of 
Virginia he also had claims to vast tracts in the un- 
settled West. For services in the French and Indian 
War he was given twenty thousand acres of wild 
land beyond the mountains — a cheap mode of re- 
ward, for the Ohio region was to all intents and 
purposes more remote than Yukon is to-day. Many 
of his fellow soldiers held their grants so lightly that 
he was able to buy their claims for almost a song. 
The feeling that such grants were comparatively 
worthless was increased by the fact that to become 
effective they must be located and surveyed, while 
doubt existed as to whether they would be respected 
owing to conflicting claims, jurisdictions and proc- 
lamations. 

Washington, however, had seen the land and 




The Porter's Lodge 




Driveway from the Lodge Gate 



BUILDING AN ESTATE 19 

knew it was good and he had prophetic faith in the 
future of the West. He employed his old comrade 
Captain William Crawford to locate and survey 
likely tracts not only in what is now West Virginia 
and western Pennsylvania, but beyond the Ohio 
River. Settlement in the latter region had been for- 
bidden by the King's proclamation of 1763, but 
Washington thought that this was merely a tempo- 
rary measure designed to quiet the Indians and was 
anxious to have picked out in advance "some of the 
most valuable land in the King's part." In other 
words he desired Crawford to act the part of a 
"Sooner," in the language of more than a century 
later. 

In this period a number of companies were scram- 
bling for western lands, and Washington, at one 
time or another, had an interest in what was known 
as the Walpole Grant, the Mississippi Company, the 
Military Company of Adventurers and the Dismal 
Swamp Company. This last company, however, was 
interested in redeeming lands about Dismal Swamp 
in eastern Virginia and it was the only one that suc- 
ceeded. In 1799 he estimated the value of his share 
in that company at twenty thousand dollars. 

Washington took the lead in securing the rights 



20 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

of his old soldiers in the French War, advancing 
money to pay expenses in behalf of the common 
cause and using his influence in the proper quarters. 
In August, 1770, he met many of his former offi- 
cers at Captain Weedon's in Fredericksburg, and 
after they had dined and had talked over old times, 
they discussed the subject of their claims until sun- 
set, and it was decided that Washington should per- 
sonally make a long and dangerous trip to the west- 
ern region. 

In October he set out with his old friend Doctor 
James Craik and three servants, including the ubiq- 
uitous Billy Lee, and on the way increased the 
party. They followed the old Braddock Road to 
Pittsburgh, then a village of about twenty log cab- 
ins, visiting en route some tracts of land that Craw- 
ford had selected. At Pittsburgh they obtained a 
large dugout, and with Crawford, two Indians and 
several borderers, floated down the Ohio, picking 
out and marking rich bottom lands and having great 
sport hunting and fishing. 

The region in which they traveled was then little 
known and was unsettled by white men. Daniel 
Boone had made his first hunting trip into "the dark 
and bloody ground of Kaintuckee" only the year be- 



BUILDING AN ESTATE 21 

fore, and scattered along the banks of the Ohio 
stood the wigwam villages of the aboriginal lords 
of the land. At one such village Washington met a 
chief who had accompanied him on his memorable 
winter journey in 1753 to warn out the French, and 
elsewhere talked with Indians who had shot at him 
in the battle of the Monongahela and now expressed 
a belief that he must be invulnerable. At the Mingo 
Town they saw a war party of three score painted 
Iroquois on their way to fight the far distant Cataw- 
bas. Between the Indians and the white men peace 
nominally reigned, but rumors were flying of im- 
pending uprisings, and the Red Man's smouldering 
hate was soon to burst into the flame known as Lord 
Dunmore's War. Once the party was alarmed by 
a report that the Indians had killed two white men, 
but they breathed easier on learning that the sole 
basis of the story was that a trader had tried to 
swim his horse across the Ohio and had been 
drowned. In spite of uncertainties, the voyagers 
continued to the Great Kanawha and paddled about 
fourteen miles up that stream. Near its mouth 
Washington located two large tracts for himself and 
military comrades and after interesting hunting ex- 
periences and inspecting some enormous sycamores 



22 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

— concerning which matters more hereafter — the 
party turned back, and Washington reached home 
after an absence of nine weeks. 

Two of Washington's western tracts are of spe- 
cial interest. One had been selected by Crawford in 
1767 and was "a fine piece of land on a stream 
called Chartiers Creek" in the present Washington 
County, southwest of Pittsburgh. Crawford sur- 
veyed the tract and marked it by blazed trees, built 
four cabins and cleared a patch of ground, as an 
improvement, about each. Later Washington, cast- 
ing round for some one from whom to obtain a mili- 
tary title with which to cover the tract, bought out 
the claim of his financially embarrassed old neighbor 
Captain John Posey to three thousand acres, paying 
£11.11.3, or about two cents per acre. Crawford, 
now a deputy surveyor of the region, soon after re- 
surveyed two thousand eight hundred thirteen acres 
and forwarded the "return" to Washington, with 
the result that in 1774 Governor Dunmore of Vir- 
ginia granted a patent for the land. 

In the meantime, however, six squatters built a 
cabin upon the tract and cleared two or three acres, 
but Crawford paid them five pounds for their im- 
provements and induced them to move on. To keep 



BUILDING AN ESTATE 23 

off other interlopers he placed a man on the land, 
but in 1773 a party of rambunctious Scotch-Irish- 
men appeared on the scene, drove the keeper away, 
built a cabin so close in front of his door that he 
could not get back in, and continued to hold the land 
until after the Revolution. 

By that time Crawford himself was dead — hav- 
ing suffered the most terrible of all deaths — that of 
an Indian captive burnt at the stake. 

The other tract whose history it is worth our 
while to follow consisted of twelve hundred acres 
on the Youghiogheny River, likewise not far from 
Pittsburgh. It bore seams of coal, which Washing- 
ton examined in 1770 and thought "to be of the very 
best kind, burning freely and abundance of it." In 
the spring of 1773 he sent out a certain Gilbert 
Simpson, with whom he had formed a sort of part- 
nership, to look after this land, and each fur- 
nished some laborers, Washington a "fellow" and a 
"wench." Simpson managed to clear some ground 
and get in six acres of corn, but his wife disliked 
life on the borderland and made him so uncomfort- 
able with her complaints that he decided to throw 
up the venture. However, he changed his mind, and 
after a trip back East returned and, on a site noticed 



24 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

by the owner on his visit, built a grist mill on a small 
stream now called Washington's Run that empties 
into the Youghiogheny. This was one of the first 
mills erected west of the Alleghany Mountains and 
is still standing, though more or less rebuilt. The 
millstones were dug out of quarries in the neighbor- 
hood and the work of building the mill was done 
amid considerable danger from the Indians, who had 
begun what is known as Dunmore's War. Simpson's 
cabin and the slave quarters stood near what is now 
Plant No. 2 of the Washington Coal and Coke Com- 
pany. The tract of land contains valuable seams of 
coal and with some contiguous territory is valued at 
upward of twenty million dollars. 

Washington had large ideas for the development 
of these western lands. At one time he considered 
attempting to import Palatine Germans to settle 
there, but after careful investigation decided that 
the plan was impracticable. In 1774 he bought four 
men convicts, four indented servants, and a man and 
his wife for four years and sent them and some car- 
penters out to help Simpson build the mill and other- 
wise improve the lands. Next year he sent out an- 
other party, but Indian troubles and later the Revo- 
lution united with the natural difficulties of the 



BUILDING AN ESTATE 25 

country to put a stop to progress. Some of the serv- 
ants were sold and others ran away, but Simpson 
stayed on in charge, though without making any 
financial settlement with his patron till 1784. 

At the close of the Revolution Washington wrote 
to President John Witherspoon of Princeton College 
that he had in the western country patents under sig- 
nature of Lord Dunmore "for about 30,000 acres, 
and surveys for about 10,000 more, patents for 
which were suspended by the disputes with Great 
jBritain, which soon followed the return of the war- 
rants to the land office. Ten thousand acres of the 
above thirty lie upon the Ohio ; the rest on the Great 
Kenhawa, a river nearly as large, and quite as easy 
in its navigation, as the former. The whole of it is 
rich bottom land, beautifully situated on these rivers, 
and abounding plenteously in fish, wild- fowl, and 
game of all kinds." 

He could have obtained vast land grants for his 
Revolutionary services, but he stuck by his an- 
nounced intention of receiving only compensation 
for his expenses. He continued, however, to be 
greatly interested in the western country and was 
one of the first Americans to foresee the importance 
of that region to the young Republic, predicting that 



26 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

it would become populated more rapidly than any- 
one could believe and faster than any similar region 
ever had been settled. He was extremely anxious 
to develop better methods of communication with 
the West and in 1783 made a trip up the Mohawk 
River to the famous Oneida or Great Carrying Place 
to view the possibilities of waterway development in 
that region — the future course of the Erie Canal. 
Soon after he wrote to his friend the Chevalier de 
Chastellux : "I could not help taking a more exten- 
sive view of the vast inland navigation of these 
United States and could not but be struck by the im- 
mense extent and importance of it, and of the good- 
ness of that Providence which has dealt its favors to 
us with so profuse a hand. Would to God we may 
have wisdom enough to improve them. I shall not 
rest contented till I have explored the Western 
Country, and traversed those lines or great part of 
them, which have given bounds to a new empire. '* 
In partnership with George Clinton he bought, in 
1784, a tract of six thousand acres on the Mohawk, 
paying for his share, including interest, one thou- 
sand eight hundred seventy-five pounds. In 1793 
he sold two-thirds of his half for three thousand 
four hundred pounds and in his will valued the thou- 



BUILDING AN ESTATE 27 

sand acres that remained at six thousand dollars. 
This was a speculation pure and simple, as he was 
never in the region in which the land lay but once. 

On December 23, 1783, in an ever memorable 
scene, Washington resigned his commission as Com- 
mander of the Continental Army and rode off from 
Annapolis to Mount Vernon to keep Christmas there 
for the first time since 1774. The next eight months 
he was busily engaged in making repairs and im- 
provements about his home estate, but on Septem- 
ber first, having two days before said good-by to La- 
fayette, who had been visiting him, he set off on 
horseback to inspect his western lands and to obtain 
information requisite to a scheme he had for im- 
proving the "Inland Navigation of the Potomac" 
and connecting its head waters by canal with those 
of the Ohio. The first object was rendered impera- 
tive by the settlement of squatters on part of his 
richest land, some of which was even being offered 
for sale by unscrupulous land agents. 

With him went again his old friend Doctor Craik. 
Their equipage consisted of three servants and six 
horses, three of which last carried the baggage, in- 
cluding a marquee, some camp utensils, a few medi- 
cines, "hooks and lines," Madeira, port wine and 



28 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

cherry bounce. Stopping at night and for meals at 
taverns or the homes of relatives or friends, they 
passed up the picturesque Potomac Valley, meeting 
many friends along the way, among them the cele- 
brated General Daniel Morgan, with whom Wash- 
ington talked over the waterways project. At 
''Happy Retreat," the home of Charles Washing- 
ton in the fertile Shenandoah Valley, beyond the 
Blue Ridge, Washington met and transacted busi- 
ness with tenants who lived on his lands in that re- 
gion. On September fifth he reached Bath, the pres- 
ent Berkeley Springs, where he owned two thousand 
acres of land and two lots. Here fifteen years before 
he had come with his family in the hope that the 
water would benefit poor "Patey" Custis, and here 
he met *'the ingenious Mr. Rumney" who showed 
him the model of a boat to be propelled by steam. 

At Bath the party was joined by Doctor Craik's 
son William and by the General's nephew, Bushrod 
Washington. Twelve miles to the west Washington 
turned aside from the main party to visit a tract of 
two hundred forty acres that he owned on the Vir- 
ginia side of the Potomac. He found It "exceedingly 
Rich, & must be very valuable. — the lower end of 
the Land is rich white oak in places springey . . , 



BUILDING AN ESTATE 29 

the upper part is . . . covered with Walnut of 
considerable size many of them." He "got a snack" 
at the home of a Mr. McCracken and left with that 
gentleman the terms upon which he would let the 
land, then rode onward and rejoined the others. 

The cavalcade passed on to Fort Cumberland. 
There Washington left the main party to follow 
with the baggage and hurried on ahead along Brad- 
dock's old road in order to fill an appointment to be 
at Gilbert Simpson's by the fifteenth. Passing 
through the dark tangle of Laurel know as the 
Shades of Death, he came on September twelfth to 
the opening among the mountains — the Great Mead- 
ows — where in 1754 in his rude little fort of logs, 
aptly named Fort Necessity, he had fought the 
French and had been conquered by them. He 
owned the spot now, for in 1770 Crawford had 
bought it for him for "30 Pistols."* Thirty years 
before, as an enthusiastic youth, he had called it a 
"charming field for an encounter" ; now he spoke of 
it as "capable of being turned to great advantage 
... a very good stand for a Tavern — much 
Hay may be cut here When the ground is laid down 



* Doubtless he meant pistoles, coins, not weapons, 



30 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

in grass & the upland, East of the Meadow, is good 
for grain." 

Not a word about the spot* s old associations ! 

The same day he pushed on through the moun- 
tains, meeting "numbers of Persons & Pack horses 
going in with Ginseng; & for Salt & other articles 
at the Markets below," and near nightfall reached 
on the Youghiogheny River the tract on which Gil- 
bert Simpson, his agent, lived. He found the land 
poorer than he had expected and the buildings that 
had been erected indifferent, while the mill was in 
such bad condition that "little Rent, or good is to be 
expected from the present aspect of her." He was, 
in fact, unable to find a renter for the mill and let 
the land, twelve hundred acres, now worth millions, 
for only five hundred bushels of wheat! 

The land had cost him far more than he had re- 
ceived from it. Simpson had not proved a man of 
much energy and even had he been otherwise condi- 
tions in the region would have prevented him from 
accomplishing much in a financial way, for there was 
little or no market for farm produce near at hand 
and the cost of transportation over the mountains 
was prohibitive. During the Revolution, however, 
Simpson had In some way or other got hold of some 



BUILDING AN ESTATE 31 

paper currency and a few months before had turned 
over the worthless bills to Washington. A cen- 
tury later the package was sold at auction, and the 
band, which was still unbroken, bore upon it in 
Washington's hand : "Given by Gilbt. Simpson, 19 
June, 1784." 

At Simpson's Washington was met by a delega- 
tion from the squatters on his holdings on Miller's 
Run or Chartiers Creek, "and after much conversa- 
tion & attempts in them to discover all the flaws they 
could in my Deed &c." they announced that they 
would give a definite answer as to what they would 
do when Washington reached the land in dispute. 

He drew near the neighborhood on the following 
Saturday, but the next day "Being Sunday, and the 
People living on my Land, apparently very religious, 
it was thought best to postpone going among them 
till to-morrow." On Monday, in company with sev- 
eral persons including the high sheriff. Captain Van 
Swearingen, or "Indian Van," captain of one of the 
companies in Morgan's famous rifle corps, he pro- 
ceeded to the land and found that, of two thousand 
eight hundred thirteen acres, three hundred sixty- 
three were under cultivation and forty more were in 
meadow. On the land stood twelve cabins and nine 



32 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

barns claimed by fourteen different persons, most or 
all of whom were doughty Scotch-Irishmen. 

Washington was humane enough to see that they 
had something to urge in their behalf and offered to 
sell them the whole tract at twenty-five shillings an 
acre, or to take them as tenants, but they stubbornly 
refused his offers and after much wrangling an- 
nounced their intention to stand suit. Ejectment 
proceedings were accordingly brought by Washing- 
ton's attorney, Thomas Smith of Carlisle. The case 
was tried in 1786 before the Supreme Court of 
Pennsylvania and resulted in Washington's favor. 

In 1796 Washington sold the tract to a certain 
Matthew Richey for twelve thousand dollars, of 
which three thousand one hundred eighty dollars 
was to be paid in cash and the rest in three annual 
instalments. Richey died in 1798, and Washington's 
heirs had difficulties in their attempts to collect the 
remainder. 

Leaving these legal matters to be disposed of by 
lawyers, Washington turned back without visiting 
his Kanawha or Ohio lands, and on October fourth 
reached Mount Vernon, having traveled on horse- 
back about six hundred eighty miles. One result of 
his trip was the formation of the Potomac Com- 




The Seed House 
Beyond Lay the Vegetable Garden 




Ui.c of the Artiiici^l Aiounds 
The Tree upon It was Set out by Mrs. Grover Cleveland 



BUILDING AN ESTATE 33 

pany, but this is a subject that Hes without the scope 
of this book. 

From that time onward he bought occasional 
tracts of lands in various parts of the country or 
acquired them in discharge of debts. By the death 
of his mother he acquired her land on Accokeek 
Creek in Stafford County, near where his father had 
operated an iron furnace. 

Washington's landed estate as listed in his will 
amounted to about sixty thousand two hundred two 
acres, besides lots in Washington, Alexandria, Win- 
chester, Bath, Manchester, Edinburgh and Rich- 
mond. Nine thousand two hundred twenty-seven 
acres, including Mount Vernon and a tract on Four 
Mile Run, he specifically bequeathed to individuals, 
as he did some of the lots. The remaining lots and 
fifty thousand nine hundred seventy-five acres 
(some of which land was already conditionally sold) 
he directed to be disposed of, together with his live 
stock, government bonds and shares held by him in 
the Potomac Company, the Dismal Swamp Com- 
pany, the James River Company and the banks of 
Columbia and Alexandria — the whole value of 
which he conservatively estimated at five hundred 
and thirty thousand dollars. The value of the prop- 



34 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

erty he specifically bequeathed, with his slaves, 
which he directed should be freed, can only be 
guessed at, but can hardly have been short of two 
hundred and twenty thousand dollars more. In other 
words, he died possessed of property worth three- 
quarters of a million and was the richest man in 
America. 

Not all of the land that he listed in his will proved 
of benefit to his heirs. The title to three thousand 
fifty-one acres lying on the Little Miami River in 
what is now Ohio and valued by him at fifteen thou- 
sand two hundred fifty-five dollars proved defect- 
ive. In 1790 a law, signed by himself, had passed 
Congress requiring the recording of such locations 
with the federal Secretary of State. Washington's 
locations and surveys of this Ohio land had already 
been recorded in the Virginia land office, and with 
a carelessness unusual in him he neglected to comply 
with the statute. After his death certain persons 
took advantage of the defect and seized the lands, 
and his executors failed to embrace another oppor- 
tunity given them to perfect the title, with the result 
that the lands were lost. 

The matter rested until a few years ago when 
some descendants of the heirs set their heads to- 



BUILDING AN ESTATE 35 

gether and one of them, Robert E. Lee, Jr., procured 
his appointment in 1907 by the court of Fairfax 
County as administrator de bonis non of Washing- 
ton's estate. It was, of course, impossible to regain 
the lands — which lie not far from Cincinnati and 
are worth vast sums — so the movers in the matter 
had recourse to that last resort of such claimants — 
Congress — and, with the modesty usually shown by 
claimants, asked that body to reimburse the heirs in 
the sum of three hundred and five thousand one hun- 
dred dollars — ^that is, one hundred dollars per acre — 
with interest from the date of petition. 

Thus far Congress has not seen fit to comply, nor 
does there seem to be any good reason why it should 
do so. The land cost Washington a mere bagatelle, 
it was lost through the neglect of himself and his 
executors, and not one of the persons who would 
benefit by such a subsidy from the public funds is his 
lineal descendant. As a mere matter of public policy 
and common sense it may well be doubted whether 
any claim upon government, no matter how just in 
itself, should be reimbursed beyond the third gener- 
ation. The heirs urge in extenuation of the claim 
that Washington refused to accept any compensa- 
tion for his Revolutionary services, but it is an- 



36 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

swered that it is hardly seemly for his grand 
nephews and grand nieces many times removed to 
beg for something that the Father of His Country 
himself rejected. One wonders whether the claim- 
ants would dare to press their claims in the presence 
of their great Kinsman himself! 



CHAPTER III 

VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 

THE Virginia of George Washington's youth 
and early manhood was an imperial domain 
reaching from Atlantic tidewater through a thou- 
sand leagues of forests, prairies and mountains 
"west and northwest" to the South Sea. Only a nar- 
row fringe along the eastern coast was settled by 
white men ; the remainder was a terra incognita into 
which Knights of the Golden Horseshoe and Indian 
traders had penetrated a short distance, bringing 
back stories of endless stretches of wolf -haunted 
woodland, of shaggy- fronted wild oxen, of saline 
swamps in which reposed the whitened bones of 
prehistoric monsters, of fierce savage tribes whose 
boast was of the number of scalf s that swung in 
the smoke of their wigwams. Evei: as late as 1750 
the fertile Shenandoah Valley beyond the Blue 
Ridge formed the extreme frontier, while in general 
the "fall line," >vhere the drop from the foothills to 

37 



38 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

the coastal plain stops navigation, marked the limit 
of settlement. 

At the time that Washington began to farm in 
earnest eastern Virginia had, however, been settled 
for one hundred fifty-two years. Yet the population 
was almost wholly rural. Williamsburg, the capital, 
was hardly more than a country village, and Nor- 
folk, the metropolis, probably did not contain more 
than five thousand inhabitants. The population gen- 
erally was so scattered that, as has been remarked, 
a man could not see his neighbor without a telescope 
or be heard by him without firing a gun. 

A large part of the settled land was divided up 
into great estates, though there were many small 
farms. Some of these estates had been acquired for 
little or nothing by Cavalier favorites of the colonial 
governors. A few were perfectly enormous in size, 
and this was particularly the rule on the "Northern 
Neck," the region in which Mount Vernon was sit- 
uated. The holding of Lord Thomas Fairfax, the 
early friend and patron of Washington, embraced 
more than a score of modern counties and contained 
upward of five million acres. The grant had been 
made by Fairfax's grandfather. Lord Culpeper, the 
coproprietor and Governor of Virginia. 



VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE 39 

The Virginia plantation of 1760 was much more 
sufficient unto itself than was the same plantation of 
the next century when methods of communication 
had improved, articles from the outside world were 
easier to obtain, and invention was beginning to be- 
come "the mother of necessity." Many of the large 
plantations, in fact, bore no small resemblance to 
medieval manors. There was the planter himself re- 
siding with his family in the mansion, which corre- 
sponded to the manor house, and lording it over a 
crowd of white and black dependents, corresponding 
to serfs. The servants, both white and black, dwelt 
somewhat apart in the quarters, rude log huts for 
the most part, but probably as comfortable as those 
of the Saxon churls of the time of the Plantagenets. 
The planter's ownership over the persons of his de- 
pendents was, however, much more absolute than 
was that of the Norman lord, for on the manors the 
serfs could not be sold off the land, a restriction that 
did not apply in Virginia either to black slaves or in- 
dentured servants. On the manor, furthermore, the 
serf had his own bits of ground, for which he paid 
rent in kind, money or service, and the holdings 
passed from father to son; on the plantation the 
slave worked under an overseer on his master's 



40 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

crops only and had nothing that he could call his 
own — not even his wife or children. In the matter 
of the organization of industries there was a closer 
resemblance. The planter generally raised the staple 
articles of food for his family and slaves, as did the 
lord, and a large proportion of the other articles 
used or consumed were manufactured on the place. 
A son of George Mason, Washington's close friend 
and neighbor, has left us the following description 
of industry at Gunston Hall : 

"My father had among his slaves carpenters, 
coopers, sawyers, blacksmiths, tanners, curriers, 
shoemakers, spinners, weavers, and knitters, and 
even a distiller. His woods furnished timber and 
plank for the carpenters and coopers, and charcoal 
for the blacksmith ; his cattle killed for his own con- 
sumption and for sale, supplied skins for the tanners, 
curriers, and shoemakers; and his sheep gave wool 
and his fields produced cotton and flax for the 
weavers and spinners, and his own orchards fruit 
for the distillers. His carpenters and sawyers built 
and kept in repair all the dwelling-houses, barns, 
stables, ploughs, harrows, gates, etc., on the planta- 
tions, and the outhouses of the house. His coopers 



VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE 41 

made the hogsheads the tobacco was prized in, and 
the tight casks to hold the cider and other Hquors. 
The tanners and curriers, with the proper vats, etc., 
tanned and dressed the skins as well for upper as 
for lower leather to the full amount of the consump- 
tion of the estate, and the shoemakers made them 
into shoes for the negroes. A professed shoemaker 
was hired for three or four months in the year to 
come and make up the shoes for the white part 
of the family. The blacksmiths did all the iron 
work required by the establishment, as making 
and repairing ploughs, harrows, teeth, chains, bolts, 
etc. The spinners, weavers, and knitters made 
all the coarse cloths and stockings used by the ne- 
groes, and some of fine texture worn by the white 
family, nearly all worn by the children of it. The 
distiller made every fall a good deal of apple, 
peach, and persimmon brandy. The art of dis- 
tilling from grain was not then among us, and 
but few public distilleries. All these operations were 
carried on at the home house, and their results dis- 
tributed as occasion required to the different planta- 
tions. Moreover, all the beeves and hogs for con- 
sumption or sale were driven up and slaughtered 



42 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

there at the proper seasons, and whatever was to be 
preserved was salted and packed away for distribu- 
tion." 

Nevertheless the plantation drew upon the outside 
world for many articles, especially luxuries, and the 
owner had to find the wherewithal to make pay- 
ment. The almost universal answer to this problem 
was — tobacco. It was not an ideal answer, and his- 
torians have scolded the departed planters vigor- 
ously for doing the sum in that way, yet the planters 
were victims of circumstances. They had no gold 
or silver mines from which to draw bullion that 
could be coined into cash; the fur trade was of little 
importance compared with that farther north; the 
Europe of that day raised sufficient meat and grain 
for its own use, and besides these articles were bulky 
and costly to transport. But Europe did have a 
strong craving for the weed and, almost of neces- 
sity, Virginians set themselves to satisfying it. They 
could hardly be expected to do otherwise when a 
pound of tobacco would often bring in England 
more than a bushel of wheat, while it cost only a 
sixtieth part as much to send it thither. It is esti- 
mated that prior to the Revolution Virginia often 
sent out annually as much as ninety-six thousand 



VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE 43 

hogsheads of tobacco. Tobacco took the place of 
money, and debts, taxes and even ministers' sal- 
aries were paid in it. 

The disadvantages of tobacco culture are well 
known. Of all crops it is perhaps the most exhaust- 
ing to the soil, nor was a large part of Virginia 
particularly fertile to begin with. Much land was 
speedily ruined, but nothing was so cheap and plen- 
tiful in that day as land, so the planter light-heart- 
edly cleared more and let the old revert to the wil- 
derness. Any one who travels through the long set- 
tled parts of Virginia to-day will see many such old 
fields upon which large forest trees are now grow- 
ing and can find there, if he will search closely 
enough, signs of the old tobacco ridges. Only heroic 
measures and the expenditure of large sums for fer- 
tilizer could make such worn-out land again pro- 
ductive. Washington himself described the charac- 
ter of the agriculture in words that can not be im- 
proved upon: 

"A piece of land is cut down, and left under con- 
stant cultivation, first in tobacco, and then in Indian 
corn (two very exhausting plants), until it will yield 
scarcely anything; a second piece is cleared, and 
treated in the same manner ; then a third and so on, 



44 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

until probably there is but little more to clear. When 
this happens, the owner finds himself reduced to the 
choice of one of three things — either to recover the 
land which he has ruined, to accomplish which, he 
has perhaps neither the skill, the industry, nor the 
means ; or to retire beyond the mountains ; or to sub- 
stitute quantity for quality in order to raise some- 
thing. The latter has been generally adopted, and, 
with the assistance of horses, he scratches over 
much ground, and seeds it, to very little purpose.'* 

The tobacco industry was not only ruinous to the 
soil, but it was badly organized from a financial 
standpoint. Three courses were open to the planter 
who had tobacco. He might sell it to some local mer- 
cantile house, but these were not numerous nor as 
a rule conveniently situated to the general run of 
planters. He might deposit it in a tobacco ware- 
house, receiving in return a receipt, which he could 
sell if he saw fit and could find a purchaser. Or he 
could send his tobacco direct to an English agent to 
be sold. 

If a great planter and particularly if situated upon 
navigable water, this last was the course he was apt 
to follow. He would have his own wharf to which 
pnce or twice a year a ship would come bringing the 



VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE 45 

supplies he had ordered months before and taking 
away the great staple. If brought from a distance, 
the tobacco was rarely hauled to the wharf in wag- 
ons — the roads were too wretched for that^ — instead 
it was packed in a great cylindrical hogshead 
through which an iron or wooden axle was put. 
Horses or oxen were then hitched to the axle and 
the hogshead was rolled to its destination. 

By the ship that took away his tobacco the planter 
sent to the English factor a list of the goods he 
would require for the next year. It was an unsatis- 
factory way of doing business, for time and distance 
conspired to put the planter at the factor's mercy. 
The planter was not only unlikely ^to obtain a fair 
price for his product, but he had to pay excessive 
prices for poor goods and besides could never be 
certain that his order would be properly filled. 

Washington's experiences with his English agents 
were probably fairly typical. Near the close of 1759 
he complained that Thomas Knox of Bristol had 
failed to send him various things ordered, such as 
half a dozen scythes and stones, curry combs and 
brushes, weeding and grubbing hoes, and axes, and 
that now he must buy them in America at exorbitant 
prices. Not long afterward he wrote again : "I have 



46 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

recieved my goods from the Recovery, and cant help 
again complaining of the little care taken in the 
purchase: Besides leaving out half and the most 
material half too! of the Articles I sent for, I find 
the Sein is without Leads, corks and Ropes which 
renders it useless — the crate of stone ware dont con- 
tain a third of the Pieces I am charged with, and 
only two things broken, and everything very high 
Charged." 

In September of the same year he ordered, among 
other things, busts of Alexander the Great, Julius 
Caesar, Charles XII of Sweden, Frederick the Great, 
Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough; also 
of two wild beasts. The order was ''filled" by send- 
ing him a group showing ^neas bearing his father 
from Troy, two groups with two statues of Bac- 
chus and Flora, two ornamental vases and two 
"Lyons." 

"It is needless for me to particularise the sorts, 
quality, or taste I woud choose to have them in un- 
less it is observd," he wrote a year later to Robert 
Cary & Company of London apropos of some arti- 
cles with which he was dissatisfied, "and you may 
believe me when I tell you that instead of getting 
things good and fashionable in their several kind, 



VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE 47. 

we often have articles sent us that coud only have 
been used by our Forefathers in the days of yore — 
'Tis a custom, I have some reason to believe, with 
many Shop keepers, and Tradesmen in London 
when they know Goods are bespoke for Transpor- 
tation to palm sometimes old, and sometimes very 
slight and indifferent goods upon us taking care at 
the same time to advance 10, 15, or perhaps 20 pr. 
Ct. upon them." 

To his London shoemaker he wrote, November 
30, 1759, that the last two pairs of dog leather 
pumps scarce lasted twice as many days. To his 
tailor he complained on another occasion of exorbi- 
tant prices. "I shall only refer you generally to the 
Bills you have sent me, particularly for a Pompa- 
dour Suit forwarded last July amounting to £16.3.6 
without embroidery, Lace or Binding — not a close 
fine cloth neither — and only a gold Button that 
woud not stand the least Wear." 

Another time he mentions that his clothes fit 
poorly, which is not strange considering that meas- 
urements had to be sent three thousand miles and 
there was no opportunity to try the garments on 
with a view to alterations. We may safely conclude, 
therefore, that however elegant Virginia society of 



48 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

that day may have been in other respects, it was not 
distinguished for well fitting clothes! 

Most Virginia planters got in debt to their agents, 
and Washington was no exception to the rule. When 
his agents, Robert Gary & Company, called his at- 
tention to the fact, he wrote them, that they seemed 
in a bit of a hurry considering the extent of past 
dealings with each other. "Mischance rather than 
Misconduct hath been the cause of it," he asserted, 
explaining that he had made large purchases of land, 
that crops had been poor for three seasons and 
prices bad. He preferred to let the debt stand, but 
if the agents insisted upon payment now he would 
find means to discharge the obligation. 

Not all planters could speak so confidently of their 
ability to find means to discharge a debt, for the 
truth is that the profits of tobacco culture were by 
no means so large as has often been supposed. A 
recent writer speaks of huge incomes of twenty 
thousand to eighty thousand pounds a year and 
asserts that "the ordinary planter could count 
on an income of from £3,000 to £6,000." The first 
figures are altogether fabulous, "paper profits" of 
the same sort that can be obtained by calculating 
profits upon the geometrical increase of geese as il- 



VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE 49 

lustrated in a well known story. Even the last men- 
tioned sums were realized only under the most fa- 
vorable conditions and by a few planters. Much of 
the time the price of the staple was low and the costs 
of transportation and insurance, especially in time 
of war, were considerable. Washington himself had 
a consignment of tobacco captured by the French. 

The planters were by no means so prosperous as 
is often supposed and neither was their life so 
splendid as has often been pictured. Writers seem 
to have entered into a sort of conspiracy to mislead 
us concerning it. The tendency is one to which 
Southern writers are particularly prone in all that 
concerns their section. If they speak of a lawyer he 
is always a profound student of the law; of a sol- 
dier, he is the bravest tenderest knight that ever trod 
shoe leather; of a lady, she is the most beautiful that 
ever graced a drawing-room. 

The old Virginia life had its color and charm, 
though its color and charm lay in large part in things 
concerning which the writers have little or nothing 
to say. It is true that a few planters had their gor- 
geous coaches, yet Martha Washington remembered 
when there was only one coach in the whole of Vir- 
ginia, and throughout her life the roads were so 



50 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

wretched that those who traveled over them In ve- 
hicles ran in imminent danger of being overturned, 
with possible dislocation of Hmbs and disjointing of 
necks. Virginians had their liveried servants, ma- 
hogany furniture, silver plate, silks and satins; an 
examination of the old account books proves that 
they often had these and many other expensive 
things, along with their Madeira and port wine. But 
the same books show that the planter was chronically 
in debt and that bankruptcy was common, while ac- 
counts left by travelers reveal the fact that many 
of the mansion houses were shabby and run down, 
with rotting roofs, ramshackle doors, broken win- 
dows Into which old hats or other garments had 
been thrust to keep the wind away. In a word, a 
traveler could find to-day more elegance in a back 
county of Arkansas than then existed in tidewater 
Virginia. 

The tobacco industry was a culture that required 
much labor. In the spring a pile of brush was burned 
and on the spot thus fertilized and made friable the 
seed were sowed. In due course the ground was pre- 
pared and the young plants were transplanted into 
rows. Later they must be repeatedly plowed, hoed 
and otherwise cultivated and looked after and finally 



VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE 51 

the leaves must be cut or gathered and carried to 
the dry house to be dried. One man could care for 
only two or three acres, hence large scale cultivation 
required many hands — result, the importation of 
vast numbers of indentured servants and black 
slaves, with the blighting effects always consequent 
upon the presence of a servile class in a community. 

Although tobacco was the great staple, some of 
the Virginia planters had begun before the Revolu- 
tion to raise considerable crops of wheat, and most 
of them from the beginning cultivated Indian corn. 
From the wheat they made flour and bread for 
themselves, and with the corn they fed their hogs 
and horses and from it also made meal for the use 
of their slaves. In the culture of neither crop were 
they much advanced beyond the Egyptians of the 
times of the Pyramids. The wheat was reaped with 
sickles or cradles and either flailed out or else tram- 
pled out by cattle and horses, usually on a dirt floor 
in the open air. Washington estimated in 1791 that 
the average crop of wheat amounted to only eight 
or ten bushels per acre, and the yield of corn was 
also poor. 

So much emphasis was laid upon tobacco that 
many planters failed to produce food enough. Some 



52 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

raised none at all, with the result that often both 
men and animals were poorly fed, and at best the 
cost of food and forage exhausted most of the 
profits. A somewhat similar condition exists in the 
South to-day with regard to cotton. 

Almost no attention was paid to conserving the 
soil by rotation of crops, and even those few planters 
who attempted anything of the sort followed the old 
plan of allowing fields to lie in a naked fallow and to 
grow up in noxious weeds instead of raising a cover 
crop such as clover. Washington wrote in 1782: 
"My countrymen are too much used to corn blades 
and corn shucks; and have too little knowledge of 
the profit of grass land." And again in 1787: 

"The general custom has been, first to raise a 
crop of Indian corn (maize) which, according to the 
mode of cultivation, is a good preparation for 
wheat ; then a crop of wheat ; after which the ground 
is respited (except for weeds, and every trash that 
can contribute to its foulness) for about eighteen 
months; and so on, alternately, without any dress- 
ing, till the land is exhausted ; when it is turned out, 
without being sown with grass-seeds, or reeds, or 
any method taken to restore it ; and another piece Is 
ruined in the same manner. No more cattle is raised 



VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE 53 

than can be supported by lowland meadows, swamps 
&c. and the tops and blades of Indian corn ; as very 
few persons have attended to growing grasses, and 
connecting cattle with their crops. The Indian corn 
is the chief support of the labourers and their 
horses." 

As for the use of fertilizer, very little was at- 
tempted, for, as Jefferson explained, we can buy" an 
acre of new land cheaper than we can manure an old 
one." It was this cheapness of land that made it al- 
most impossible for the Virginians to break away 
from their ruinous system — ruinous, not necessarily 
to themselves, but to future generations. Conserva- 
tion was then a doctrine that was little preached. 
Posterity could take care of itself. Only a few per- 
sons like Washington realized their duty to the fu- 
ture. 

In the matter of stock as well as in pure agricul- 
ture the Virginians were backward. They showed 
to best advantage in the matter of horses. Virginia 
gentlemen were fond of horses, and some owned 
fine animals and cared for them carefully. A Ran- 
dolph of Tuckahoe is said to have had a favorite 
dapple-gray named "Shakespeare" for whom he 
built a special stable with a sort of recess next the 



54 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

stall in which the groom slept. Generally speaking, 
however, even among the aristocracy the horses 
were not so good nor so well cared for as in the next 
century. 

Among the small farmers and poorer people the 
horses were apt to be scrubs, often mere bags of 
bones. A scientific English agriculturist named 
Parkinson, who came over in 1798, tells us that the 
American horses generally "leap well; they are ac- 
customed to leap from the time of foaling; as it is 
not at all uncommon, if the mare foal in the night, 
for some part of the family to ride the mare, with 
the foal following her, from eighteen to twenty 
miles next day, it not being customary to walk much. 
I think that is the cause of the American horse hav- 
ing a sort of amble: the foal from its weak state, 
goes pacing after the dam, and retains that motion 
all its life. The same is the case with respect to 
leaping: there being in many places no gates, the 
snake or worm- fence (which is one rail laid on the 
end of another) is taken down to let the mare pass 
through, and the foal follow : but, as it is usual to 
leave two or three rails untaken down, which the 
mare leaps over, the foal, unwilling to be left behind, 
follows her ; so that, by the time it is one week old, 



VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE 55 

it has learned to leap three feet high ; and progress- 
ively, as it grows older, it leaps higher, till at a year 
old, it will leap its own height." 

Sheep raising was not attempted to any great ex- 
tent, partly because of the ravages of wolves and 
dogs and partly because the sheep is a perverse ani- 
mal that often seems to prefer dying to keeping alive 
and requires skilled care to be made profitable. The 
breeds were various and often were degenerated. 
Travelers saw Holland or rat-tailed sheep, West In- 
dian sheep with scant wool and much resembling 
goats, also a few Spanish sheep, but none would 
have won encomiums from a scientific English 
breeder. The merino had not yet been introduced. 
Good breeds of sheep were difficult to obtain, for 
both the English and Spanish governments forbade 
the exportation of such animals and they could be 
obtained only by smuggling them out. 

In 1792 Arthur Young expressed astonishment 
when told that wolves and dogs were a serious im- 
pediment to sheep raising in America, yet this was 
undoubtedly the case. The rich had their foxhounds, 
while every poor white and many negroes had from 
one to half a dozen curs — all of which canines were 
likely to enjoy the sport of sheep killing. Mr. Rich- 



56 GEORGE WASHINGTON—FARMER 

ard Peters, a well informed farmer of Pennsylvania, 
said that wherever the country was much broken 
wolves were to be found and bred prodigiously. "I 
lay not long ago at the foot of South Mountain, in 
York county, in this State, in a country very thickly 
settled, at the house of a Justice of the Peace. 
Through the night I was kept awake by what I con- 
ceived to be a jubilee of dogs, assembled to bay the 
moon. But I was told in the morning, that what dis- 
turbed me, was only the common howling of wolves, 
which nobody there regarded. When I entered the 
Hall of Justice, I found the 'Squire giving judgment 
for the reward on two wolf whelps a countryman 
had taken from the bitch. The judgment-seat was 
shaken with the intelligence, that the wolf was com- 
ing — not to give hail — but to devote herself or res- 
cue her offspring. The animal was punished for this 
'daring contempt, committed in the face of the court, 
and was shot within a hundred yards of the tri- 
bunal." 

Virginians had not yet learned the merits of grass 
and pasture, and their cattle, being compelled to 
browse on twigs and weeds, were often thin and 
poor. Many ranged through the woods and it was 
so difficult to get them up that sometimes they would 



VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE S7^ 

not be milked for two or three days. Often they 
gave no more than a quart of milk a day and were 
probably no better in appearance than the historian 
Lecky tells us were the wretched beasts then to be 
found in the Scottish Highlands. 

Hogs received even less care than cattle and ran 
half wild in the woods like their successors, the 
famous Southern razor-backs of to-day, being fed 
only a short period before they were to be trans- 
formed into pork. Says Parkinson : 

"The real American hog is what is termed the 
wood-hog : they are long in the leg, narrow on the 
back, short in the body, flat on the sides, with a long 
snout, very rough in their hair, in make more like a 
fish called a perch than anything I can describe. You 
may as well think of stopping a crow as those hogs. 
They will go a distance from a fence, take a run, 
and leap through the rails, three or four feet from 
the ground, turning themselves sidewise. These hogs 
suffer such hardships as no other animal could en- 
dure. It is customary to keep them in the woods all 
winter, as there is no thrashing or fold-yards; and 
they must live on the roots of trees, or something 
of that sort, but they are poor beyond any creature 
that I ever saw. That is probably the cause why 



58 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

American pork is so fine. They are something Hke 
forest-sheep. I am not certain, with American keep- 
ing and treatment, if they be not the best: for I 
never saw an animal live without food, except this ; 
and I am pretty sure they nearly do that. When 
they are fed, the flesh may well be sweet: it is all 
young, though the pig be ten years old." 

"The aim of the farmers in this country (if they 
can be called farmers)," wrote Washington to Ar- 
thur Young in 1791, "is, not to make the most they 
can from the land, which is or has been cheap, but 
the most of the labour, which is dear; the conse- 
quence of which has been, much ground has been 
scratched over and none cultivated or improved as it 
ought to have been: whereas a farmer in England, 
where land is dear, and labour cheap, finds it his in- 
terest to improve and cultivate highly, that he may 
reap large crops from a small quantity of ground." 

No clearer statement of the differences between 
American and European agriculture has ever been 
formulated. Down to our own day the object of the 
American farmer has continued to be the same — 
to secure the largest return from the expenditure of 
a given amount of labor. But we are on the thresh- 
old of a revolution, the outcome of which means 



VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE 59 

intensive cultivation and the realization of the larg- 
est possible return from a given amount of land. 

That Washington saw the distinction so clearly 
is of itself sufficient proof that he pondered long and 
deeply upon agricultural problems. 



CHAPTER IV 



"T^TO ESTATE in United America," wrote 
X^ Washington to Arthur Young in 1793, "is 
more pleasantly situated than this. It lies in a high, 
dry, and healthy country, 300 miles by water from 
the sea, and, as you will see by the plan, on one of 
the finest rivers in the world. Its margin is washed 
by more than ten miles of tide water; from the beds 
of which and the innumerable coves, inlets, and 
small marshes, with which it abounds, an inexhausti- 
ble fund of mud may be drawn as a manure, either 
to be used separately or in a compost. . . . 

"The soil of the tract of which I am speaking is 
a good loam, more inclined, however, to clay than 
sand. From use, and I might add, abuse, it is be- 
come more and more consolidated, and of course 
heavier to work. . . . 

"This river, which encompasses the land the dis- 
tance above mentioned, is well supplied with vari- 

60 



WASHINGTON'S PROBLEM 61 

ous kinds of fish at all seasons of the year; and, in 
the spring, with great profusion of shad, herring, 
bass, carp, perch, sturgeon, etc. Several fisheries ap- 
pertain to the estate; the whole shore, in short, is 
'one entire fishery." 

The Mount Vernon estate, amounting in the end 
to over eight thousand acres, was, with the excep- 
tion of a few outlying tracts, subdivided into five 
farms, namely, the Mansion House Farm, the 
Union Farm, the Dogue Run Farm, Muddy Hole 
Farm and the River Farm. 

On the Mansion House Farm stood the owner's 
residence, quarters for the negroes and other serv- 
ants engaged upon that particular estate, and other 
buildings. The land in general was badly broken 
and poor in quality; much of it was still in wood- 
land. 

The River Farm lay farthest up the Potomac, be- 
ing separated from the others by the stream known 
as Little Hunting Creek. Visitors to Mount Vernon 
to-day, traveling by trolley, cross this farm and 
stream. It contained more tillable ground than any 
other, about twelve hundred acres. In 1793 it had 
an "overlooker's" house of one large and two small 
rooms below and one or two rooms above, quarters 



62 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

for fifty or sixty negroes, a large barn and stables 
gone much to decay. 

Muddy Hole Farm lay across Little Hunting 
Creek from the River Farm and back of the Man- 
sion House Farm and had no frontal upon the Po- 
tomac. It contained four hundred seventy-six acres 
of tillable soil and had in 1793 a small overlooker's 
house, "covering for about 30 negroes, and a toler- 
able good barn, with stables for the work-horses." 

Union Farm lay just below the Mansion House 
Farm and contained nine hundred twenty-eight 
acres of arable land and meadow. In 1793 it had, 
in Washington's words, "a newly erected brick barn, 
equal, perhaps, to any in America, and for conveni- 
ences of all sorts, particularly for sheltering and 
feeding horses, cattle, &c. scarcely to be exceeded 
any where." A new house of four rooms was build- 
ing, and there were quarters for fifty odd negroes. 
On this farm was the old Posey fishery and ferry 
to Maryland. 

Dogue Run Farm, of six hundred fifty acres, lay 
back of Union Farm and upon it in 1793 stood the 
grist mill and later a distillery and the famous six- 
teen-sided "new circular barn, now finishing on a 
new construction ; well calculated, it is conceived, for 



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Sent by Him to Arthur Young in 1793 



WASHINGTON'S PROBLEM 63 

getting grain out of the straw more expeditiously" 
than the usual mode of threshing.'* It had a two- 
room overseer's house, covering for forty odd ne- 
groes, and sheds sufficient for thirty work horses 
and oxen. Washington considered it much the best 
of all his farms. It was this farm that he bequeathed 
to Nelly Custis and her husband, Lawrence Lewis, 
and upon it they erected "Woodlawn," which is 
shown in the photograph herewith reproduced. 

Not long since I rambled on foot over the old 
estate and had an opportunity to compare the real- 
ity, or what remains of it, with Washington's de- 
scription. I left the Mansion House, often visited 
before, and strolled down the long winding drive 
that runs between the stunted evergreens and oaks 
through the old lodge gate and passed from the do- 
main, kept trim and parklike by the Association, out 
upon the unkempt and vastly greater part of the old 
Mount Vernon. 

It was early morning, about the hour when in the 
long past the master of the estate used to ride out 
on his tour of inspection. The day was one of those 
delicious days in early autumn when earth and sky 
and air and all things in nature seem kindly allied 
to help the heart of man leap up in gladness and to 



64 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

enable him to understand how there came to be a 
poet called Wordsworth. Meadow-larks were sing- 
ing in the grass, and once in an old hedgerow over- 
grown with sweet-smelling wild honeysuckle I saw a 
covey of young quails. These hedgerows of locust 
and cedar are broken now, but along the old road 
to the mill and Pohick Church and between fields the 
scattered trees and now and then a bordering ditch 
are evidences of the old owner's handiwork. 

Then and later I visited all the farms, the site of 
the old mill, of which only a few stones remain, the 
mill stream, the fishery and old ferry landing. I 
walked across the gullied fields and examined the 
soil, I noted the scanty crops they bear to-day and 
gained a clearer idea of what Washington's problem 
had been than I could have done from a library of 
books. 

Truly the estate is "pleasantly situated,'* though 
even to-day it seems out of the world and out of the 
way. One must go far to find so satisfying a view 
as that from the old Mansion House porch across 
the mile of shining water to the Maryland hills 
crowned with trees glorified by the Midas-touch of 
frost. The land does lie "high" and "dry," but we 
must take exception to the word "healthy." In the 



WASHINGTON'S PROBLEM 65 

summer and fall the tidal marshes breed a variety 
of mosquito capable of biting through armor plate 
and of infecting the devil himself with malaria. In 
the General's day, when screens were unknown, a 
large part of the population, both white and black, 
suffered every August and September from chills 
and fever. The master himself was not exempt and 
once we find him chronicling that he went a-hunting 
and caught a fox and the ague. 

What he says as regards the fisheries is all quite 
true and in general they seem to have been very pro- 
ductive. Herring and shad were the chief fish caught 
and when the run came the seine was carried well 
out into the river in a boat and then hauled up on 
the shelving beach either by hand or with a windlass 
operated by horse-power. There were warehouses 
and vats for curing the fish, a cooper shop and build- 
ings for sheltering the men. The fish were salted 
down for the use of the family and the slaves, and 
what surplus remained was sold. Now and then the 
landing and outfit was rented out for a money con- 
sideration, but this usually happened only when the 
owner was away from home. 

At the old Posey fishery on Union Farm the in- 
dustry is still carried on, though gasoline engines 



66 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

have been substituted for the horse-operated winch 
used in drawing the seines. Lately the industry 
has ceased to be very productive, and an old man 
in charge told me that it is because fishermen down 
the river and in Chesapeake Bay are so active that 
comparatively few fish manage to get up so far. 

The Mount Vernon estate in the old days lacked 
only one quality necessary to make it extremely 
productive, namely, rich soil! Only ignorance of 
what good land really is, or an owner's blind pride 
in his own estate, can justify the phrase "a good 
loam." On most of the estate the soil is thin, vary- 
ing in color from a light gray to a yellow red, with 
below a red clay hardpan almost impervious to wa- 
ter. To an observer brought up on a farm of the 
rich Middle West, Mount Vernon, except for a few 
scattered fields, seems extremely poor land. For 
farming purposes most of it would be high at thirty 
dollars an acre. Much of it is so broken by steep 
hills and deep ravines as scarcely to be tillable at all. 
Those tracts which are cultivated are very suscepti- 
ble to erosion. Deep gullies are quickly worn on the 
hillsides and slopes. At one time such a gully on 
Union Farm extended almost completely across a 
large field and was deep enough to hide a horse, but 



WASHINGTON'S PROBLEM 67 

Washington filled it up with trees, stumps, stones, 
old rails, brush and dirt, so that scarcely a trace of 
it was left. In places one comes upon old fields that 
have been allowed to revert to broom sedge, scrub 
oak and scrub pine. One is astonished at the amount 
that has never been cleared at all. Only by the most 
careful husbandry could such an estate be kept pro- 
ductive. It never could be made to yield bumper 
crops. 

The situation confronting "Farmer Washington" 
was this: He had a great abundance of land, but 
most of it on his home estate was mediocre in qual- 
ity. Some of that lying at a distance was more fer- 
tile, but much of it was uncleared and that on the 
Ohio was hopelessly distant from a market. With 
the exception of Mount Vernon even those planta- 
tions in Virginia east of the Blue Ridge could not 
be looked after in person. He must either rent them, 
trust them to a manager, or allow them to lie idle. 
Even the Mount Vernon land was distant from a 
good market, and the cost of transportation was so 
great that he must produce for selling purposes ar- 
ticles of little bulk compared with value. Finally, he 
had an increasing number of slaves for whom food 
and clothing must be provided. 



68 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

His answer to the problem of a money crop was 
for some years the old Virginia answer — tobacco. 
His far western lands he left for the most part un- 
tenanted. Those plantations in settled regions but 
remote from his home he generally rented for a 
share of the crop or for cash. The staple articles 
that he produced to feed the slaves were pork and 
corn, eked out by herring from the fishery. 

From his accounts we find that in 1759 he made 
thirty- four thousand one hundred sixty pounds of 
tobacco; the next year sixty-five thousand thirty- 
seven pounds; in 1763, eighty-nine thousand seven- 
ty-nine pounds, which appears to have been his ban- 
ner tobacco crop. In 1765 the quantity fell to forty- 
one thousand seven hundred ninety-nine pounds ; in 
1771, to twenty-nine thousand nine hundred eighty- 
six pounds, and in 1773 to only about five thousand 
pounds. Thereafter his crop of the weed was neg- 
ligible, though we still find occasional references to 
it even as late as 1794, when he states that he has 
twenty-five hogsheads in the warehouses of Alex- 
andria, where he has held it for five or six years 
because of low prices. 

He tried to raise a good quality and seems to have 




Looking across part of Dogue Run Farm to '-Woodlawn," the 
Home of Nelly Custis Lewis 




Gully on a Field of Union Farm, Showing Susceptibility to Ei 



WASHINGTON'S PROBLEM 69 

concentrated on what he calls the "sweet scented" 
variety, but for some reason, perhaps because his 
soil was not capable of producing the best, he ob- 
tained lower prices than did some of the other Vir- 
ginia planters, and grumbled at his agents accord- 
ingly. 

He early realized the ruinous effects of tobacco 
on his land and sought to free himself from its 
clutches by turning to the production of wheat and 
flour for the West India market. Ultimately he was 
so prejudiced against the weed that in 1789 we find 
him in a contract with a tenant named Gray, to 
whom he leased a tract of land for ten pounds, stip- 
ulating that Gray should make no more tobacco than 
he needed for "chewing and smoaking in his own 
family." 

Late in life he decided that his land was not con- 
genial to corn, in which he was undoubtedly right, 
for the average yield was only about fifteen bushels 
per acre. In the corn country farmers now often 
produce a hundred. He continued to raise com only 
because it was essential for his negroes and hogs. 
In 1798 he contracted with William A. Washington 
to supply him with five hundred barrels annually to 



70 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

eke out his own crop. Even this quantity did not 
prove sufficient, for we find him next year trying 
to engage one hundred harrels more. 

Before this time his main concern had come to 
be to conserve his soil and he had turned his atten- 
tion largely to grass and live stock. Of these mat- 
ters more hereafter. 



CHAPTER V 

THE STUDENT OF AGRICULTURE 

WASHINGTON took great pains to inform 
himself concerning any subject in which he 
was interested and hardly was he settled down to 
serious farming before he was ordering from Eng- 
land **the best System now extant of Agriculture." 
Shortly afterward he expressed a desire for a book 
"lately published, done by various hands, but chiefly 
collected from the papers of Mr. Hale. If this is 
known to be the best, pray send it, but not if any 
other is in high esteem." Another time he inquires 
for a small piece in octavo, "a new system of Agri- 
culture, or a speedy way to grow rich." 

Among his papers are preserved long and detailed 
notes laboriously taken from such works as Tull's 
Horse-Hoeing Husbandry, Duhamel's A Practical 
Treatise of Husbandry, The Fanner's Compleat 
Guide, Home's The Gentleman Farmer, and volumes 
of Young's Annals of Agriculture, 

71 



72 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

The abstracts from the Annals were taken after 
the Revolution and probably before he became Pres- 
ident, for the first volume did not appear until 1784. 
From the handwriting it is evident that the digests 
of Tull's and Duhamel's books were made before the 
Revolution and probably about 1760. In the midst 
of the notes on chapter eight of the Compleat Guide 
there are evidences of a long hiatus in time — Mr. 
Fitzpatrick of the manuscript division of the Li- 
brary of Congress thinks perhaps as much as eight 
or ten years. A vivid imagination can readily con- 
ceive Washington's laying aside the task for the 
more important one of vindicating the liberties of 
his countrymen and taking it up again only when he 
had sheathed the sword. But all we can say is that 
for some reason he dropped the work for a consid- 
erable time, the evidence being that the later hand- 
writing differs perceptibly from that which precedes 
it. 

As most of Washington's agricultural ideas were 
drawn from these books, it is worth while for us to 
examine them. I have not been able to put my hands 
on Washington's own copies, but in the library of 
the Department of Agriculture I have examined the 
works of Tull, Duhamel and Young. 



JHE STUDENT OF AGRICULTURE 73 

TuU's Horse-Hoeing Husbandry was an epoch- 
making book in the history of English agriculture. 
It was first published in 1731 and the third edition, 
the one I have seen and probably the one that Wash- 
ington possessed, appeared in 1751. Possibly it was 
the small piece in octavo, "a new system of Agricul- 
ture, or a speedy way to grow rich" concerning 
which he wrote to his agent. It deals with a great 
variety of subjects, such as of roots and leaves, of 
food of plants, of pasture, of plants, of weeds, of 
turnips, of wheat, of smut, of blight, of St. Foin, 
of lucerne, of ridges, of plows, of drill boxes, but 
its one great thesis was the careful cultivation by 
plowing of such annuals as potatoes, turnips, and 
wheat, crops which hitherto had been tended by hand 
or left to fight their battle unaided after having 
once been planted. 

Duhamel's book was the work of a Frenchman 
whose last name was Monceau. It was based in part 
upon Tull's book, but contained many reflections 
suggested by French experience as well as some ad- 
ditions made by the English translator. The Eng- 
lish translation appeared in 1759, the year of Wash- 
ington's marriage. It dealt with almost every aspect 
of agriculture and stock raising, advocated horse- 



74 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

hoeing, had much to say in favor of turnips, lucerne, 
clover and such crops, and contained plates and de- 
scriptions of various plows, drills and other kinds of 
implements. It also contained a detailed table of 
weather observations for a considerable time, which 
may have given Washington the idea of keeping his 
meteorological records. 

Young's Annals was an elaborate agricultural 
periodical not unlike in some respects publications 
of this sort to-day except for its lack of advertising. 
It contains records of a great variety of experitnents 
in both agriculture and stock raising, pictures and 
descriptions of plows, machines for rooting up 
trees, and other implements and machines, plans for 
the rotation of crops, and articles and essays by ex- 
perimental farmers of the day. Among its contribu- 
tors were men of much eminence, and we come upon 
articles by Mr. William Pitt on storing turnips, Mr. 
William Pitt on deep plowing; George III himself 
contributed under the pen name of "Ralph Robin- 
son.'* The man who should follow its directions 
even to-day would not in most matters go far wrong. 

As one looks over these publications he realizes 
that the scientific farmers of that day were discuss- 
ing many problems and subjects that still interest 



THE STUDENT OF AGRICULTURE 75 

those of the present. The language is occasionally 
quaint, but the principles set down are less often 
wrong than might be supposed. To be sure, Tull de- 
nied that different plants require different sorts of 
food and, notes Washington, "gives many unanswer- 
able Reasons to prove it," but he combats the notion 
that the soil ever causes wheat to degenerate into 
rye. This he declares "as ridiculous as it would be 
to say that an horse by feeding in a certain pasture 
will degenerate into a Bull." And yet it is not diffi- 
cult to discover farmers to-day who will stubbornly 
argue that "wheat makes cheat." Tull also advo- 
cated the idea that manure should be put on green 
and plowed under in order to obtain anything like 
its full benefit, as well as many other sound ideas 
that are still disregarded by many American farm- 
ers. 

Washington eagerly studied the works that have 
been mentioned, and much of his time when at 
Mount Vernon was devoted to experiments designed 
to ascertain to what extent the principles that were 
sound in England could be successfully applied in an 
American environment. 



CHAPTER VI 
A farmer's records and other papers 

WASHINGTON was the most methodical 
man that ever lived. He had a place for 
everything and insisted that everything should be 
kept in its place. There was nothing haphazard 
about his methods of business. He kept exact ac- 
counts of financial dealings. 

His habit of setting things down on paper was one 
that developed early. He kept a journal of his sur- 
veying experiences beyond the Blue Ridge in 1748, 
another of his trip to Barbadoes with his brother 
Lawrence in 1751-52, another of his trip to Fort Le 
Boeuf to warn out the French, and yet another of 
his Fort Necessity campaign. The words are often 
misspelled, many expressions are ungrammatical, 
but the handwriting is good and the judgments ex- 
pressed, even those set down when he was only six- 
teen, are the mature judgments of a man. 

A year after his marriage he began a formal 
diary, which he continued until June 19, 1775, the 

76 



A FARMER'S RECORDS 17 

time of his appointment to command the army of 
the Revolution. He called it his Diary and later 
Where, & how my time is Spent. In it he entered 
the happenings of the day, his agricultural and other 
experiments, a record of his guests and also a de- 
tailed account of the weather. 

His attention to this last matter was most particu- 
lar. Often when away from home he would have a 
record kept and on his return would incorporate it 
into his book. Exactly what advantages he expected 
to derive therefrom are not apparent, though I pre- 
sume that he hoped to draw conclusions as to the 
best time for planting crops. In reading it I was 
many times reminded of a Cleveland octogenarian 
who for fifty-seven years kept a record twice a day 
of the thermometer and barometer. Near the end 
of his life he brought the big ledgers to the Western 
Reserve Historical Society, and I happened to be 
present on the occasion. "You have studied the sub- 
ject for a long time," I said to him. "Are there any 
conclusions you have been able to reach as a result 
of your investigation?" He thought a minute and 
passed a wrinkled hand across a wrinkled brow. 
"Nothing but this," he made answer, "that Cleve- 
land weather is only constant in its inconstancy." 



7d> GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

We would gladly exchange some of these meteoro- 
logical details for further information about Wash- 
ington's own personal doings and feelings. Of the 
latter the diaries reveal little. Washington was an 
objective man, above all in his papers. He sets down 
what happens and says little about causes, motives 
or mental impressions. When on his way to York- 
town to capture Cornwallis he visited his home for 
the first time in six weary years, yet merely re- 
corded : *'I reached my own Seat at Mount Vernon 
(distant 120 Miles from the Hd. of Elk) where I 
staid till the 12th." 

Not a word of the emotions which that visit must 
have roused! 

For almost six years after 1775 there is a gap in 
the diary, though for some months of 1780 he sets 
down the weather. On May 1, 1781, he begins a new 
record, which he calls a Journal, and he expresses 
regret that he has not had time to keep one all the 
time. The subjects now considered are almost 
wholly military and the entries reveal a different 
man from that of 1775. The grammar is better, the 
vocabulary larger, the tone more elevated, the man 
himself is bigger and broader with an infinitely 
wider view-point. 



A FARMER'S RECORDS 79 

From November 5, 1781, for more than three 
years there is another blank, except for the journal 
of his trip to his western lands already referred to. 
But on January 1, 1785, he begins a new Diary and 
thenceforward continues it, with short intermis- 
sions, until the day of his last ride over his estate. 

A few of the diaries and journals have been lost, 
but most are still in existence. Some are in the Con- 
gressional Library and there also is the Toner tran- 
script of these records. The transcript makes thirty- 
seven large volumes. The diary is one of the main 
sources from which the material for this book is 
drawn. 

The original of the record of events for 1760 is 
a small book, perhaps eight or ten inches long by 
four inches wide and much yellowed by age. Part 
of the first entry stands thus: ^ 

"January 1, Tuesday 
"Visited my Plantations and received an Instance 
of Mr. French's great Love of Money in disappoint- 
ing me of some Pork because the price had risen to 
22.6 after he had engaged to let me have it at 20 s." 

On his return from his winter ride he found Mrs. 
Washington "broke out with the Meazles." Next 



80 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

day he states with evident disgust that he has taken 
the pork on French's own terms. 

The weather record for 1760 was kept on blank 
pages of The Virginia Almanac, a compendium that 
contains directions for making "Indico," for curing 
bloody flux, for making "Physick as pleasant as a 
Dish of Chocolate," for making a striking sun-dial, 
also "A Receipt to keep one's self warm a whole 
Winter with a single Billet of Wood." To do this 
last "Take a Billet of Wood of a competent Size, 
fling it out of the Gar ret- Window into the Yard, run 
down Stairs as hard as ever you can drive; and 
when you have got it, run up again with it at the 
same Measure of Speed; and thus keep throwing 
down, and fetching up, till the Exercise shall have 
sufficiently heated you. This renew as often as Oc- 
casion shall require. Probatum est." 

This receipt would seem worth preserving in this 
day of dear fuel. As Washington had great abund- 
ance of wood and plenty of negroes to cut it, he 
probably did not try the experiment — at least such a 
conclusion is what writers on historical method 
would call "a safe Inference." 

There is in the almanac a rhyme ridiculing phy- 



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First Page of Washington's Digest of Duhamel's Husbandry 



A FARMER'S RECORDS 81 

sicians and above the March calendar are printed the 
touching verses : 

"Thus of all Joy and happiness bereft, 
And with the Charge of Ten poor Children left : 
A greater Grief no Woman sure can know, 
Who, — with Ten Children — who will have me 
now." 

Also there are some other verses, very broad and 
"not quite the proper thing," as Kipling has it. But 
it must not be inferred that Washington approved of 
them. 

Washington also kept cash memorandum books, 
general account books, mill books and a special book 
in which he recorded his accounts with the estate of 
the Custis children. These old books, written in his 
neat legible hand, are not only one of our chief 
sources of information concerning his agricultural 
and financial affairs, but contain many sidelights 
upon historical events. It is extremely interesting, 
for example, to discover in one of the account 
books that in 1775 at Mount Vernon he lent General 
Charles Lee — of Monmouth fame — £15, and "to 
Ditto lent him on the Road from Phila to Cambridge 



82 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

at diifferent times" £9.12 more, a total of £24.12. In 
later years Lee intrigued against Washington and 
said many spiteful things about him, but he never 
returned the loan. The account stood until 1786, 
when it was settled by Alexander White, Lee's ex- 
ecutor. 

In the Cash Memorandum books we can trace 
Washington's military preparations at the beginning 
of the Revolution. Thus on June 2, 1775, being then 
at Philadelphia, he enters : "By Expences bringing 
my Horses from Baltimore," £2.5. Next day he 
pays thirty pounds for "Cartouch Boxes &c. for 
Prince Wm. Comp." June 6, "By Covering my 
Holsters," £0.7.6; "By a Cersingle," £0.7.6; "By 5 
Books — Military," £1.12.0. He was preparing for 
Gage and Howe and Cornwallis and whether the 
knowledge contained in the books was of value or 
not he somehow managed for eight 3^ears to hold 
his opponents at bay and ultimately to win. At Cam- 
bridge, July tenth, he spends three shillings and four 
pence for a "Ribbon to distinguish myself," that is 
to show his position as commander; also £1.2.6. for 
"a pair of Breeches for Will," his colored body 
servant. 

A vast number of papers bear witness to his in- 



A FARMER'S RECORDS 83 

terest in agriculture and with these we are particu- 
larly concerned. He preserved most of the letters 
written to him and many of these deal with farming 
matters. During part of his career he had a copying 
press and kept copies of his own important letters, 
while many of the originals have been preserved, 
though widely scattered. When away from home 
he required his manager to send him elaborate 
weekly reports containing a meteorological table of 
each day's weather, the work done on each farm, 
what each person did, who was sick, losses and in- 
creases in stock, and other matters of interest. 
Scores of these reports are still in existence and are 
invaluable. He himself wrote — generally on Sun- 
day — lengthy weekly letters of inquiry, direction, 
admonition and reproof, and if the manager failed 
in the minutest matter to give an account of some 
phase of the farm work, he would be sure to hear 
of it in the proprietor's next letter. 

Washington's correspondence on agricultural mat- 
ters with Arthur Young and Sir John Sinclair, emi- 
nent English agriculturists, was collected soon after 
his death in a volume that is now rare. In it are a 
number of letters written by other American farm- 
ers, including Thomas Jefferson, relative to agricul- 



84 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

ture in their localities. These letters were the result 
of inquiries made of Washington by Young in 1791. 
In order to obtain the facts desired Washington sent 
out a circular letter to some of the most intelligent 
farmers in the Middle States, and the replies form 
perhaps our best source of information regarding 
agricultural conditions in that period. 

Because of this service and of his general interest 
in agricultural matters Washington was elected a 
'foreign honorary member of the English Board of 
Agriculture and received a diploma, which is still 
preserved among his papers. 

Some of Washington's other agricultural papers 
have been printed in one form and another, but a 
great number, and some the most interesting, can 
still be consulted only in manuscript. 

Washington bequeathed his books and papers, 
along with his Mansion House, to his nephew, 
Bushrod Washington, an associate justice of the 
Federal Supreme Court. Judge Washington failed 
to appreciate fully the seriousness of the obligation 
thus incurred and instead of safeguarding the pa- 
pers with the utmost jealousy gave many, includ- 
ing volumes of the diary, to visitors and friends 
who expressed a desire to possess mementoes of the 



A FARMER'S RECORDS 85 

illustrious patriot. In particular he permitted Rev- 
erend William Buel Sprague, who had been a tutor 
in the family of Nelly Custis Lewis, to take about 
fifteen hundred papers on condition that he leave 
copies in their places. The judge also intrusted a 
considerable portion to the historian Jared Sparks, 
who issued the first considerable edition of Wash- 
ington's writings. Sparks likewise was guilty of 
giving away souvenirs. 

Bushrod Washington died in 1829 and left the 
papers and letter books for the most part to his 
nephew John Corbin Washington. In 1834 the 
nation purchased of this gentleman the papers of a 
public character, paying twenty-five thousand dol- 
lars. The owner reserved the private papers, in- 
cluding invoices, ciphering book, rules of civility, 
etc., but in 1849 sold these also to the same pur- 
chaser for twenty thousand dollars. The papers 
were kept for many years in the Department of 
State, but in the administration of Theodore Roose- 
velt most of them were transferred to the Library 
of Congress, where they could be better cared for 
and would be more accessible. 

Bushrod Washington gave to another nephew, 
John Augustine Washington, the books and relics 



86 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

in the dining-room of the Mansion House. In 
course of time these were scattered, some being 
bought for the Boston Athenaeum, which has de- 
cidedly the larger part of Washington's library; 
others were purchased by the state of New York, 
and yet others were exhibited at the Centennial Ex- 
position and were later sold at auction. Among the 
relies bought by New York was a sword wrongly 
said to have been sent to the General by Frederick 
the Great. 

One hundred and twenty-seven of his letters, 
mostly to William Pearce, his manager at Mount 
Vernon during a portion of his presidency, were 
bought from the heirs of Pearce by the celebrated 
Edward Everett and now belong to the Long Island 
Historical Society. These have been published. His 
correspondence with Tobias Lear, for many years 
his private secretary, are now in the collection of 
Thomas K. Bixby, a wealthy bibliophile of St. 
Louis. These also have been published. The one 
greatest repository of papers is the Library of Con- 
gress. Furthermore, through the unwearying ac- 
tivities of J. M. Toner, who devoted years to the 
work, the Library also has authenticated copies of 



A FARMER'S RECORDS 87 

many papers of which it does not possess the orig- 
inals. 

All told, according to Mr. Gaillard Hunt, who has 
them in charge, the Washington manuscripts in the 
Library of Congress is the largest collection of 
papers of one person in the world. The collection 
contains about eighteen thousand papers in his own 
hand, press copies, or drafts in the writing of his 
secretaries, and many times that number of others. 
As yet all except a small part are merely arranged in 
chronological order, but soon it is to be sumptuously 
bound in royal purple levant. The color, after all, 
is fitting, for he was a King and he reigns still in 
the hearts of his countrymen. 

Benjamin Franklin knew the great men of earth 
of his time, the princes and kings of blood royal. 
Near the close of his life he wrote in his will : ''My 
fine crabtree walking-stick with a gold head, curi- 
ously wrought in the form of a cap of Liberty, I 
give to my friend, and the friend of mankind. Gen- 
eral Washington. If it was a sceptre, he has merited 
it, and would become it." 

And thus Thackeray, who knew the true from the 
false, the dross from pure gold: "Which was the 



88 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

most splendid spectacle ever witnessed, the opening 
feast of Prince George in London or the resignation 
of Washington? Which is the noble character for 
ages to admire — ^yon fribble dancing in lace and 
spangles, or yonder hero who sheathes his sword 
after a life of spotless honor, a purity unreproached, 
a courage indomitable, and a consummate victory? 
Which of these is the true gentleman? What is it 
to be a gentleman? Is it to have lofty aims, to 
lead a pure life, to keep your honor virgin; to have 
the esteem of your fellow-citizens, and the love of 
your fireside ; to bear good fortune meekly ; to suffer 
evil with constancy; and through evil or good to 
maintain truth always? Show me the happy man 
whose life exhibits these qualities, and him will we 
salute as gentleman, whatever his rank may be; 
show me the prince who possesses them, and he may 
be sure of our love and loyalty." 

'Tis often distance only that lends enchantment, 
but it is Washington's proud pre-eminence that he 
can bear the microscope. Having read thousands of 
his letters and papers dealing with almost every 
conceivable subject in the range of human affairs, 
I yet feel inclined, nay compelled, to bear witness to 
the greatness of his heart, soul and understanding. 



A FARMER'S RECORDS 89 

He was human. He had his faults. He made his 
mistakes. But I would not detract a line from any 
eulogium of him ever uttered. Words have never 
yet been penned that do him justice. 



CHAPTER VII 

AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS 
BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 

A DETAILED account of all of Washington's 
_ agricultural experiments would require sev- 
eral hundred pages and would be tedious reading. 
All that I shall attempt to do is to give some ex- 
amples and point the way for any enthusiast to the 
mass of his agricultural papers in the Library of 
Congress and elsewhere. 

At the outset it should be stated that he worked 
under extremely different conditions from those of 
to-day. Any American farmer of the present who 
has a problem in his head can have it solved by writ- 
ing to the nearest government experiment station, 
a good farm paper, an agricultural college, the de- 
partment of agriculture, or in some favored districts 
by consulting the local county "agent." Washing- 
ton had no such recourse. There was not an agri- 
cultural college or agricultural paper in the whole 

90 



AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS 91 

country; the department of agriculture was not cre- 
ated until near the end of the next century; county 
"agents" were as unthought of as automobiles or 
electric lights; there was not a scientific farmer in 
America ; even the Philadelphia Society for the Pro- 
motion of Agriculture was not founded until 1785. 
In his later years our Farmer could and did write to 
such foreign specialists as Arthur Young and Sir 
John Sinclair, but they were Englishmen unfamiliar 
with American soils and climate and could rarely 
give a weighty answer propounded to them by an 
American. If Washington wished to know a thing 
about practical farming, he usually had to find it out 
for himself. 

This state of affairs accounts for his performing 
some experiments that seem absurd. Thus in the fall 
of 1764 we find him sowing "a few Oats to see if 
they would stand the winter." Any country boy of 
to-day could tell him that ordinary oats sown under 
such conditions in the latitude of Mount Vernon 
would winter kill too badly to be of much use, but 
Washington could not know it till he had tried. 

In another category was his experiment in March, 
1760, with lucerne. Lucerne is alfalfa. It will 
probably be news to most readers that alfalfa — the 



92 GEORGE WASll?NGTON— FARMER 

wonderful forage crop of the West, the producer 
of more gold than all the mines of the Klondike — 
was in use so long ago, for the impression is pretty 
general that it is comparatively new ; the fact is that 
it is older than the Christian era and that the name 
alfalfa comes from the Arabic and means "the best 
crop." Evidently our Farmer had been reading on 
the subject, for in his diary he quotes what "Tull 
speaking of lucerne, says." He tried out the plant 
on this and several other occasions and had a con- 
siderable field of it in 1798. His success was not 
large with it at any time, for the Mount Vernon 
soil was not naturally suited to alfalfa, which thrives 
best in a dry and pervious subsoil containing plenty 
of lime, but the experiment was certainly worth 
trying. 

In this same year, 1760, we find him sowing 
clover, rye, grass, hope, trefoil, timothy, spelt, 
which was a species of wheat, and various other 
grasses and vegetables, most of them to all intents 
and purposes unknown to the Virginia agriculture 
of that day. 

He also recorded an interesting experiment with 
fertilizer. April 14, 1760, he writes in his diary: 

"Mixed my composts in a box with the apart- 



AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS 93 

ments in the following manner, viz. No. 1 is three 
pecks of earth brought from below the hill out of 
the 46 acre field without any mixture. In No. 2 is 
two pecks of sand earth and one of marie taken out 
of the said field, which marie seemed a little inclined 
to sand. 3 has 2 pecks of sd. earth and 1 of river 
sand. 

"4 has a peck of Horse Dung 

"5 has mud taken out of the creek 

"6 has cow dung 

**7 has marie from the Gulleys on the hillside, 
jych. seem'd to be purer than the other 

"8 sheep dung 

"9 Black mould from the Gulleys on the hill side, 
5ych. scemd to be purer than the other 

"10 Clay got just below the garden 

"All mixed with the same quantity and sort of 
earth in the most effective manner by reducing the 
whole to a tolerable degree of fineness and rubbing 
them well together on a cloth. In each of these 
divisions were planted three grains of wheat, 3 of 
oats, and as many of barley, all of equal distances 
in Rows and of equal depth done by a machine made 
for the purpose. The wheat rows are next the 
numbered side, the oats in the middle, and the barley 



94 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

on the side next the upper part of the Garden. Two 
or three hours after sowing in this manner, and 
about an hour before sunset I watered them all 
equally alike with water that had been standing in 
a tub abt two hours exposed to the sun/* 

Three weeks later he inspected the boxes and con- 
cluded that Nos. 8 and 9 gave the best results. 

The plows of the period were cumbersome and 
did their work poorly. Consequently in March, 
1760, Washington "Fitted a two Eyed Plow instead 
of a Duck Bill Plow", and tried it out, using his car- 
riage horses in the work. But this new model 
proved upon the whole a failure and a little later 
he "Spent the greater part of the day in making a 
new plow of my own Invention." Next day he set 
the new plow to work "and found She answerd 
very well." 

A little later he "got a new harrow made of 
smaller and closer teethings for harrowing in grain 
— the other being more proper for preparing the 
ground for sowing." 

Much of his attention in the next few years was 
devoted to wheat growing, for, as already related, 
he soon decided gradually to discontinue tobacco 
and it was imperative for him to discover some 



AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS 95 

other money crop to take its place. We find him 
steeping his seed wheat in brine and alum to pre- 
vent smut and he also tried other experiments to 
protect his grain from the Hessian fly and rust. 
Noticing how the freezing and thawing of the 
ground in spring often injured the wheat by lifting 
it out of the ground, he adopted the practice of run- 
ning a heavy roller over the wheat in order to get 
the roots back into the ground and he was confident 
that when the operation was performed at the proper 
time, that is when the ground was soft and the roots 
were still alive, it was productive of good results. 

In June, 1763, he "dug up abt. a load of Marie 
to spread over Wheat Land for experiment." In 
1768 he came to the conclusion that most farmers 
began to cut their wheat too late, for of course 
cradling was a slow process — scarcely four acres 
per day per cradler — and if the acreage was large 
several days must elapse before the last of the grain 
could be cut, with the result that some of it became 
so ripe that many of the kernels were shattered out 
and lost before the straw could be got to the thresh- 
ing floor. By careful experiments he determined 
that the grain would not lose perceptibly in size and 
weight if the wheat were cut comparatively green. 



96 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

In wheat-growing communities the discussion as to 
this question still rages — extremists on one side will 
not cut their wheat till it is dead ripe, while those 
on the other begin to harvest it when it is almost 
sea-green. 

In 1763 Washington entered into an agreement 
with John Carlyle and Robert Adams of Alexandria 
to sell to them all the wheat he would have to dis- 
pose of in the next seven years. The price was to 
be three shillings and nine pence per bushel, that is, 
about ninety-one cents. This would not be far from 
the average price of wheat to-day, but, on the one 
side, we should bear in mind that ninety-one cents 
then had much greater purchasing power than now, 
so that the price was really much greater, and, on 
the other, that the cost of raising wheat was larger 
then, owing to lack of self-binders, threshing ma- 
chines and other labor-saving devices. 

The wheat thus sold by Washington was to be 
delivered at the wharf at Alexandria or beside a 
boat or flat on Four Mile Run Creek. The delivery 
for 1764 was 257>^ bushels; for 1765, 1,112J4 
bushels; for 1766, 2,33 lj4 bushels; for 1767— a 
bad year— 1,293>^ bushels; for 1768, 4,994% bush^ 



AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS 97. 

els of wheat and 4,304>^ bushels of corn; for 1769, 
6,241 J^ bushels of wheat. 

Thereafter he ground a good part of his wheat 
and sold the flour. He owned three mills, one in 
western Pennsylvania, already referred to, a second 
on Four Mile Run near Alexandria, and a third on 
the Mount Vernon estate. This last mill had been 
in operation since his father's day. It was situated 
near the mouth of the stream known as Dogue Run, 
which was not very well suited for the purpose as 
it ran from the extreme of low water in summer to 
violent floods in winter and spring. Thus his miller, 
William A. Poole, in a letter that wins the sweep- 
stakes in phonetic spelling, complains in 1757 that 
he has been able to grind but little because "She 
fails by want of Water." At other times the Master 
sallies out in the rain with rescue crews to save the 
mill from floods and more than once the "tumbling 
dam" goes by the board in spite of all efforts. The 
lack of water was partly remedied in 1771 by turn- 
ing the water of Piney Branch into the Run, and 
about the same time a new and better mill was 
erected, while in 1797 further improvements were 
made. During the whole period flatboats and small 



98 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

schooners could come to the wharf to take away the 
flour. Corn and other grains were ground, as well 
as wheat, and the mill had considerable neighbor- 
hood custom, the toll exacted being one-eighth. 
Only a few stones sticking in a bank now remain 
of the mill. 

Washington divided his flour into superfine, fine, 
middlings and ship stuff. It was put into barrels 
manufactured by the plantation coopers and much 
of it ultimately found its way to the West India 
market. A tradition — much quoted — has it that 
barrels marked **George Washington, Mount Ver- 
non,*' were accepted in the islands without any in- 
spection, but Mr. J. M. Toner, one of the closest 
students of Washington's career, contended that 
this w^as a mistake and pointed to the fact that the 
Virginia law provided for the inspection of all flour 
before it was exported and the placing of a brand 
on each barrel. However this may be, we have 
Washington's own word for it, that his flour was 
as good in quality as any manufactured in America 
• — and he was no boasting lago. 

That his flour was so good was in large measure 
due to the excellent quality of the wheat from which 
it was made. By careful attention to his seed and 



m^. •''^ 




Dogue Run Ijelow the Site of the Mill 




On the Road to the Mill and Pohick Church 



AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS , 99 

to cultivation he succeeded in raising grain that 
often weighed upward of sixty pounds to the 
bushel. After the Revolution he wrote : "No wheat 
that has ever yet fallen under my observation ex- 
ceeds the wheat which some years ago I cultivated 
extensively/* 

His idea of good cultivation in these years was 
to let his fields lie fallow at certain intervals, though 
he also made use of manure, marl, etc., and in 1772 
tried the experiment of sowing two bushels of salt 
per acre upon fallow ground, dividing the plot up 
into strips eight feet in width and sowing the alter- 
nate strips in order that he might be able to deter- 
mine results. 

He imported from England an improved Roth- 
eran or patent plow, and, having noticed in an agri- 
cultural work mention of a machine capable of pull- 
ing up two or three hundred stumps per day, he ex- 
pressed a desire for one, saying: "If the accounts 
are not greatly exaggerated, such powerful assist- 
ance must be of vast utility in many parts of this 
wooden country, where it is impossible for our force 
(and laborers are not to be hired here), between the 
finishing of one crop and preparations for an- 
other, to clear ground fast enough to afford the 



100 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

proper changes, either in the planting or farming 
business." 

These were his golden days. He was not so rich 
as he was later nor so famous, but he was strong 
and well and young, he had abundant friends, and 
his neighbors thought well enough of him to send 
him to the Burgesses and to make him a vestryman 
of old Pohick Church; if he felt the need of recrea- 
tion he went fishing or fox-hunting or attended a 
horse race or played a game of cards with his 
friends, and he had few things to trouble him seri- 
ously. But fussy kings and ministers overseas were 
meddling with the liberties of subjects and were 
creating a situation out of which was to come a 
mighty burden — a burden so Atalantean that it 
would have frightened most men, but one that he 
was brave enough and strong enough to shoulder 
and with it march down to immortality. 



CHAPTER VIII 

CONSERVING THE SOIL 

THE Revolution rudely interrupted Washing- 
ton's farming experiments, and for eight long 
years he was so actively engaged in the grim busi- 
ness of checkmating Howe and Clinton and Corn- 
wallis that he could give little time or thought to 
agriculture. For more than six years, in fact, he 
did not once set foot upon his beloved fields and 
heard of his crops, his servants and his live stock 
only from family visitors to his camps or through 
the pages of his manager's letters. 

Peace at last brought him release. He had left 
Mount Vernon a simple country gentleman ; he came 
back to it one of the most famous men in the world. 
He wasted no time in contemplating his laurels, but 
at once threw himself with renewed enthusiasm into 
his old occupation. His observation of northern 
agriculture and conversations with other farmers 
had broadened his views and he was more than ever 

101 



102 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

progressive. He was now thoroughly convinced of 
the great desirability of grass and stock for conserv- 
ing the soil and he was also wide awake to the need 
of better tools and methods and wished to make his 
estate beautiful as well as useful. 

Much of his energy in 1784-85 was devoted to 
rebuilding his house and improving his grounds, and 
to his trip to his Ohio lands — all of which are de- 
scribed elsewhere. No diary exists for 1784 except 
that of the trip to the Ohio, but from the diary of 
1 785 we learn that he found time to experiment with 
plaster of Paris and powdered stone as fertilizers, 
to sow clover, orchard grass, guinea grass and peas 
and to borrow a scow with which to raise rich mud 
from the bed of the Potomac. 

The growing poverty of his soil, in fact, was a 
subject to which he gave much attention. He made 
use of manure when possible, but the supply of this 
was limited and commercial fertilizers were un- 
known. As already indicated, he was beginning the 
use of clover and other grasses, but he was anxious 
to build up the soil more rapidly and the Potomac 
muck seemed to him a possible answer to the prob- 
lem. There was, as he said, "an inexhaustible fund'* 
of it, but the task of getting it on the land was a 



CONSERVING THE SOIL 103 

heavy one. Having heard of a horse-power dredge 
called the Hippopotamus that was in use on the 
Delaware River, he made inquiries concerning it 
but feared that it would not serve his purpose, as 
he would have to go from one hundred to eight 
hundred or a thousand yards from high water-mark 
for the mud — too far out for a horse to be available. 
Mechanical difficulties and the cost of getting up the 
mud proved too great for him — as they have proved 
too great even down to the present — but he never 
gave up the idea and from time to time tried ex- 
periments with small plots of ground that had been 
covered with the mud. His enthusiasm on the sub- 
ject was so great that Noah Webster, of dictionary 
fame, who visited him in this period, says that the 
standing toast at Mount Vernon was "Success to 
the mud !" 

Every scientific agriculturist knows that erosion 
is one of the chief causes of loss in soil fertility and 
that in the basins and deltas of streams and rivers 
there is going to waste enough muck to make all of 
our land rich. But the cost of getting this fertility 
back to the soil has thus far proved too great for 
us to undertake the task of restoration. It is con- 
ceivable, however, that the time may come when we 



104 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

shall undertake the work in earnest and then the 
dream of Washington will be realized. 

The spring and summer of 1785 proved excess- 
ively dry, and the crops suffered, as they always do 
in times of drought. The wheat yield was poor and 
chinch bugs attacked the corn in such myriads that 
our Farmer found "hundreds of them & their young 
under the blades and at the lower joints of the 
Stock." By the middle of August "Nature had put 
on a melancholy look." The corn was ''fired in 
most places to the Ear, with little appearance of 
yielding if Rain should now come & a certainty of 
making nothing if it did not." 

Like millions of anxious farmers before and after 
him, he watched eagerly for the rain that came not. 
He records in his diary that on August 17th a good 
deal of rain fell far up the river, but as for his fields 
' — it tantalizingly passed by on the other side, and 
"not enough fell here to wet a handkerchief." On 
the eighteenth, nineteenth and twenty-second clouds 
and thunder and lightning again awakened hopes 
but only slight sprinkles resulted. On the twenty- 
seventh nature at last relented and, to his great satis- 
faction, there was a generous downpour. 

The rain was beneficial to about a thousand grains 



CONSERVING THE SOIL; 105 

of Cape of Good Hope wheat that Washington had 
just sown and by the thirty-first he was able to note 
that it was coming up. For several years thereafter 
he experimented with this wheat. He found that 
it grew up very rank and tried cutting some of it 
back. But the variety was not well adapted to Vir- 
ginia and ultimately he gave it up. 

In this period he also tried Siberian wheat, put 
marl on sixteen square rods of meadow,* plowed 
under rye, and experimented with oats, carrots, East- 
ern Shore peas, supposed to be strengthening to land, 
also rib grass, burnet and various other things. He 
planted potatoes both with and without manure and 
noted carefully the difference in yields. At this 
time he favored planting corn in rows about ten 
feet apart, with rows of potatoes, carrots, or peas 
between. He noted down that his experience 
showed that corn ought to be planted not later than 

"^n sixteen square rod of ground in.t"y lowe^ ffese 'no^ 
put 140 Bushels of what we call Marie viz on 4 of these Wo. 
Wt. corner were placed 50 bushels-on 4 others So. Wt corner 
30 bushels-on 4 others So. Et. corner 40 bushels-and on the 
remaining 4=20 bushels. This Marie was spread on the rods 
in these proportions-to try first whether what we have de- 
nominated to be Marie possesses any virtue as manure-_and 
secondly-if it does, the quantity proper for an acre His 
Xmate conclusion was that marl was of little benefit to land 
such as he owned at Mount Vernon. 



106 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

May 15th, preferably by the tenth or perhaps even as 
early as the first, in which his practice would not 
differ much from that of to-day. But he came to 
an erroneous conclusion when he decided that wheat 
ought to be sown in August or at the latter end of 
July, for this was playing into the hands of his 
enemy, the Hessian fly, which is particularly de- 
structive to early sown wheat. Later he seems to 
have changed his mind on that point, for near the 
end of his life he instructed his manager to get the 
wheat in by September 10th. Another custom 
which he was advocating was that of fall and win- 
ter plowing and he had as much of it done as time 
and weather would permit. All of his experiments 
in this period were painstakingly set down and he 
even took the trouble in 1786 to index his agricul- 
tural notes and observations for that year. 

Many of his experiments were made in what he 
called his "Botanical Garden," a plot of ground 
lying between the flower garden and the spinner^s 
house. But he had experimental plots on most or 
all of his plantations, and each day as he made the 
rounds of his estate on horseback he would examine 
how his plants were growing or would start new 
experiments. 



CONSERVING THE SOIL 107 

The record of failures is, of course, much greater 
than of successes, but that is the experience of every 
scientific farmer or horticulturist who ventures out 
of the beaten path. Even Burbank, the wizard, has 
his failures — and many of them. 

One of Washington's successes was what he called 
a "barrel plough." At that time all seed, such as 
corn, wheat and oats had to be sown or dropped by 
hand and then covered with a harrow or a hoe or 
something of the kind. Washington tried to make a 
machine that would do the work more expeditiously 
and succeeded, though it should be said that his 
plans were not altogether original with him, as there 
was a plan for such a machine in Duhamel and an- 
other was published by Arthur Young about this 
time in the Annals of Agriculture, which Washing- 
ton was now perusing with much attention. Rich- 
ard Peters also sent yet another plan. 

Washington's drill, as we should call it to-day, 
consisted of a barrel or hollow cylinder of wood 
mounted upon a wheeled plow and so arranged 
that as the plow moved forward the barrel turned. 
In the barrel, holes were cut or burnt through which 
the corn or other seed could drop into tubes that 
ran down to the ground. By decreasing or increas- 



108 GEORGE WA#HINGTON— FARMER 

ing the number of holes the grain could be planted 
thicker or thinner as desired. To prevent the holes 
from choking up he found it expedient to make them 
larger on the outside than on the inside, and he also 
found that the machine worked better if the barrel 
was not kept too full of seed. Behind the drills ran a 
light harrow or drag which covered the seed, though 
in rough ground it was necessary to have a man fol- 
low after with a hoe to assist the process. A string 
was fastened to this harrow by which it could be 
lifted around when turning at the ends of the rows, 
the drill itself being managed by a pair of handles. 
Washington wrote to a friend that the drill would 
not "work to good effect in land that is very full 
either of stumps, stones, or large clods; but, where 
the ground is tolerably free from these and in good 
tilth, and particularly in light land, I am certain 
you will find it equal to your most sanguine expecta- 
tion, for Indian corn, wheat, barley, pease, or any 
other tolerably round grain, that you may wish to 
sow or plant in this manner. I have sown oats very 
well with it, which is among the most inconvenient 
and unfit grains for this machine. ... A small 
bag, containing about a peck of the seed you are 
sowing, is hung to the nails on the right handle, and 



CONSERVING THE SOIL 109 

with a small tin cup the barrel is replenished with 
convenience, whenever it is necessary, without loss 
of time, or waiting to come up with the seed-bag 
at the end of the row." 

As Washington says, the drill would probably 
work well under ideal conditions, but there were 
features of it that would incline, I have no doubt, 
to make its operator swear at times. There was a 
leather band that ran about the barrel with holes 
corresponding to those in the barrel, the purpose of 
the band being to prevent the seeds issuing out of 
more than one hole at the same time. This band 
had to be "slackened or braced" according to the 
influence of the atmosphere upon the leather, and 
sometimes the holes in the band tended to gape and 
admit seed between the band and the barrel, in 
which case Washington found it expedient to rivet 
"a piece of sheet tin, copper, or brass, the width of 
the band, and about four inches long, with a hole 
through it, the size of the one in the leather." 

Washington was, however, very proud of the 
drill, and it must have worked fairly well, for he 
was not the man to continue to use a worthless im- 
plement simply because he had made it. He even 
used it to sow very small seed. In the summer of 



no GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

1786 he records: "Having fixed a Roller to the 
tale of my drill plow, & a brush between it and the 
barrel, I sent it to Muddy Hole & sowed turnips in 
the intervals of corn."* 

No man better understood the value of good clean 
seed than did he, but he had much trouble in satisfy- 
ing his desires in this respect. Often the seed he 
bought was foul with weed seeds, and at other times 
it would not grow at all. Once he mentions having 



* Another passage from his papers in which he mentions us- 
ing his drill plow is also illustrative of the emphasis he placed 
upon having the seed bed for a crop properly prepared. The 
passage descril^es his sowing some spring wheat and is as fol- 
lows: "12th [of April, 1785]. — Sowed sixteen acres of Siberian 
wheat, with eighteen quarts, in rows between corn, eight feet 
apart. This ground had been prepared in the following man- 
ner : 1. A single furrow ; 2. another in the same to deepen it ; 
3. four furrows to throw the earth back into the two first, which 
made ridges of five furrows. These, being done some time ago, 
and the sowing retarded by frequent rains, had got hard ; there- 
fore, 4. before the seed was sown, these ridges were split 
again by running twice in the middle of them, both times in 
the same furrow; 5. after which the ridges were harrowed; 
and, 6. where the ground was lumpy, run a spiked roller with 
SI harrow at the tail of it, which was found very efficacious in 
breaking the clods and pulverizing the earth, and would have 
done it perfectly, if there had not been too much moisture re- 
maining from the late rains. After this, harrowing and roll- 
ing were necessary, the wheat was sown with the drill plough 
on the reduced ridges eight feet apart, as above mentioned, 
and harrowed in with the small harrow belonging to the 
plough. But it should have been observed, that, after the 
ridges were split by the middle double furrows, and before 
they were closed again by the harrow, a little manure was 
sprinkled in." 



CONSERVING THE SOIL I'll 

set the women and "weak hands" to work picking 
wild onions out of some Eastern Shore oats that he 
had bought. 

He advocated planting the largest and finest po- 
tatoes instead of the little ones, as some farmers out 
of false ideas of economy still make the mistake of 
doing, and he followed the same principle that "the 
best will produce the best" in selecting all seed. 

He also appreciated the importance of getting 
just the right stand of grain — not too many plants 
and not too few — upon his fields and conducted in- 
vestigations along this line. He laboriously calcu- 
lated the number of seed in a pound Troy of various 
seeds and ascertained, for example, that the number 
of red clover was 71,000, of timothy 298,000, of 
"New River Grass" 844,800 and of barley 8,925. 
Knowing these facts, he was able to calculate how 
much ought to be sowed of a given seed to the acre. 

The spectacle of the former Commander of the 
Armies of a Continent engaging in such minute 
labor is ridiculous or sublime, according to the view- 
point ! 

In the spring of the year that he helped to frame 
the Federal Constitution he "Sowed the squares No. 
2 & 4 at this place [Dogue Run] with oats in the 



112 GEORGE WA^INGTON— FARMER 

following manner — viz — the East half of No. 2 
with half a Bushel of Oats from George Town — 
and the west half with a Bushel of Poland Oats — 
The east half of No. 4 with half a bushel of the 
Poland Oats and the west half with a bushel of the 
George Town Oats. The objects, and design of this 
experiment, was to ascertn. 3 things — 1st. which of 
these two kinds of Oats were best the George Town 
(which was a good kind of the common Oats) — 2d. 
whether two or four bushels to the Acre was best — 
and 3d. the difference between ground dunged at 
the Rate of 5 load or 200 bushels to the Acre and 
ground undunged." 

This experiment is typical of a great many others 
and it resulted, of course, in better yields on the ma- 
nured ground and showed that two bushels of seed 
were preferable to four. But if he ever set down the 
result of the experiment as regards the varieties, the 
passage has escaped me. 

While at Fredericksburg this year visiting his 
mother and his sister Betty Lewis he learned of an 
interesting method of raising potatoes under straw 
and wrote down the details in his diary. A little 
later when attending the Federal Convention he kept 
his eyes and ears open for agricultural information. 



CONSERVING THE SOIL 113 

He learned how the Pennsylvanians cultivated buck- 
wheat and visited the farm of a certain Jones, who 
was getting good results from the use of plaster of 
Paris. With his usual interest in labor-saving ma- 
chinery he inspected at Benjamin Franklin's a sort 
of ironing machine called a mangle, "well calcu- 
lated," he thought, "for Table cloths & such arti- 
cles as have not pleats & irregular foldings & would 
be very useful in large families." 

This year he had in wheat seven hundred acres, in 
^rass five hundred eighty acres, in oats four hun- 
dred acres, in corn seven hundred acres, with sev- 
eral hundred more in buckwheat, barley, potatoes, 
peas, beans and turnips. 

In 1788 he raised one thousand eighty-eight bush- 
els of potatoes on one plantation, but they were not 
'dug till December and in consequence some were 
badly injured by the frost. An experiment that year 
was one of transplanting carrots between rows of 
corn and it was not successful. 

He worked hard in these years, but, as many an- 
other industrious farmer has discovered, he found 
that he could do little unless nature smiled and fickle 
nature persisted in frowning. In 1785 the rain 
seemed to forget how to fall, and in 1786 how to 



114 GEORGE WA^INGTON— FARMER 

stop falling. Some crops failed or were very short 
and soon he was so hard up that he was anxious to 
sell some lands or negroes to meet debts coming due. 
In February, 1786, in sending fifteen guineas to his 
mother, he wrote : 

"I have now demands upon me for more than 
£500, three hundred and forty odd of which is due 
for the tax of 1786; and I know not where or when 
I shall receive one shilling with which to pay it. In 
the last two years I made no crops. In the first I 
was obliged to buy corn, and this year have none to 
sell, and my wheat is so bad I can neither eat it my- 
self nor sell it to others, and tobacco I make none. 
Those who owe me money cannot or will not pay 
it without suits, and to sue is to do nothing; whilst 
my expenses, not from any extravagance, or an in- 
clination on my part to live splendidly, but for the 
absolute support of my family and the visitors who 
are constantly here, are exceedingly high." 

To bad crops were joined bad conditions through- 
out the country generally. The government of the 
Confederation was dying of inanition, America was 
flooded with depreciated currency, both state and 
Continental. In western Massachusetts a rebellion 
broke out, the rebels being largely discouraged debt- 



CONSERVING THE SOIL 115 

ors. A state of chaos seemed imminent and would 
have resulted had not the Federal Convention, of 
which Washington was a member, created a new 
government. Ultimately this government brought 
order and financial stability, but all this took time 
and Washington was so financially embarrassed in 
1789 when he traveled to New York to be inaugu- 
rated President that he had to borrow money to 
pay the expenses of the journey. 

After having set the wheels of government In mo- 
tion he made an extended trip through New Eng- 
land and whenever public festivities would permit 
he examined into New England farm methods and 
took copious notes. On the fitst day up from New 
York he saw good crops of corn mixed with pump- 
kins and met four droves of beef cattle, "some of 
which were very fine — also a Flock of Sheep. . . . 
We scarcely passed a farm house that did not abd. 
in Geese." His judgment of New England stock 
was that the cattle were "of a good quality and their 
hogs large, but rather long legged." The shingle 
roofs, stone and brick chimneys, stone fences and 
cider making all attracted his attention. The fact 
that wheat in that section produced an average of 
fifteen bushels per acre and often twenty or twenty- 



116 GEORGE WASHINGTON—FARMER 

five was duly noted. On the whole he seems to have 
considered the tour enjoyable and profitable in spite 
of the fact that on his return through Connecticut 
the law against Sabbath traveling compelled him to 
remain over Sunday at Perkins' Tavern and to at- 
tend church twice, where he "heard very lame dis- 
courses from a Mr. Pond." 

About 1785 Washington had begun a correspond- 
ence with Arthur Young and also began to read 
his periodical called the Annals of Agriculture. The 
Annals convinced him more than ever of the superi- 
ority of the English system of husbandry and not 
only gave him the idea for some of the experiments 
that have been mentioned, but also made him very 
desirous of adopting a regular and systematic course 
of cropping in order to conserve his soil. Taking 
advantage of an offer made by Young, he ordered 
(August 6, 1786) through him English plows, cab- 
bage, turnip, sainfoin, rye-grass and hop clover seed 
and eight bushels of winter vetches; also some 
months later, velvet wheat, field beans, spring bar- 
ley, oats and more sainfoin seed. He furthermore 
expressed a wish for "a plan of the most complete 
and useful farmyard, for farms of about 500 acres. 
In this I mean to comprehend the barn, and every 



CONSERVING THE SOIL 117 

appurtenance which ought to be annexed to the 
yard." 

Young was as good as his word. Although Eng- 
lish law forbade the exportation of some of these 
things — a fact of which Washington was not aware 
— he and Sir John Sinclair prevailed upon Lord 
Grenville to issue a special permit and in due course 
everything reached Mount Vernon. Part of the 
seeds were somewhat injured by being put into the 
hold of the vessel that brought them over, with the 
result that they overheated — a thing that troubled 
Washington whenever he imported seeds — but on 
the whole the consignment was in fair order, and 
our Farmer was duly grateful. 

The plows appeared excessively heavy to the Vir- 
ginians who looked them over, but a trial showed 
that they worked "exceedingly well.'' 

To Young's plan for a barn and barnyard Wash- 
ington made some additions and constructed the 
barn upon Union Farm, building it of bricks that 
were made on the estate. He later expressed a belief 
that it was "the largest and most convenient one in 
this country." It has now disappeared almost utter- 
ly, but Young's plan jvas subsequently engraved in 
the Annals, 



118 GEORGE W/ShINGTON— FARMER 

In return for the exertions of Young and Sin- 
clair in his behalf Washington sent over some Amer- 
ican products and also took pains to collect infor- 
mation for them as to the state of American agri- 
culture. His letters show an almost pathetic eager- 
ness to please these good friends and it is evident 
that in his farming operations he regarded himself 
as one of Young's disciples. He was no egotist who 
believed that because he had been a successful sol- 
dier and was now President of the United States he 
could not learn anything from a specialist. The trait 
was most commendable and one that is sadly lacking 
in many of his countrymen, some of whom take 
pride in declaring that *'these here scientific fellers 
caint tell me nothin' about raisin' corn!" 

Young and Sir John Sinclair were by no means 
his only agricultural correspondents. Even Noah 
Webster dropped his legal and philological work 
long enough in 1790 to propound a theory so start- 
lingly modern In its viewpoint that it is worthy of 
reproduction. Said he: 

"While therefore I allow, in its full extent, the 
value of stable manure, marl, plaster of Paris, lime, 
ashes, sea-weed, sea-shells & salt. In enriching land, 
I believe none of them are absolutely necessary, but 



CONSERVING THE SOIL 119 

that nature has provided an inexhaustible store of 
manure, which is equally accessible to the rich and 
the poor, & which may be collected & applied to land 
with very little labor and expense. This store is the 
atmosphere, & the process by which the fertilizing 
substance may be obtained is vegetation." 

He added that such crops as oats, peas, beans and 
buckwheat should be raised and plowed under to rot 
and that land should never be left bare. As one pe- 
ruses the letter he recalls that scientists of to-day 
tell us that the air is largely made up of nitrogen, 
that plants are able to "fix it," and he half expects 
to find Webster advocating "soil innoculation" and 
speaking of "nodules" and "bacteria." 

Throughout the period after the Revolution our 
Farmer's one greatest concern was to conserve and 
restore his land. When looking for a new manager 
he once wrote that the man must be, "above all, 
Midas like, one who can convert everything he 
touches into manure, as the first transmutation to- 
ward gold; in a word, one who can bring wornout 
and gullied lands into good tilth in the shortest 
time." He saved manure as if it were already so 
much gold and hoped with its use and with judicious 
rotation of crops to accomplish his object. "Unless 



120 GEORGE W^HINGTON— FARMER 

some such practice as this prevails," he wrote in 
1794, "my fields will be growing worse and worse 
every year, until the Crops will not defray the ex- 
pense of the culture of them." 

He drew up elaborate plans for the rotation of 
crops on his different farms. Not content with one 
plan, he often drew up several alternatives; calcu- 
lated the probable financial returns from each, allow- 
ing for the cost of seed, cultivation and other ex- 
penses, and commented upon the respective advan- 
tages from every point of view of the various plans. 
The labor involved in such work was very great, but 
Washington was no shirker. He was always up 
before sunrise, both in winter and summer, and 
seems to have been so constituted that he was most 
contented when he had something to do. Perhaps if 
he had had to engage in hard manual toil every day 
he would have had less inclination for such employ- 
ment, but he worked with his own hands only inter- 
mittently, devoting his time mostly to planning and 
oversight. 

One such plan for Dogue Run Farm is given on 
the next page. To understand it the reader should 
bear in mind that the farm contained five hundred 



CONSERVING THE SOIL 



121 



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122 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

twenty-five arable acres divided into seven fields, 
each of which contained about seventy-five acres. 

Of this rotation he noted that it "favors the land 
very much; inasmuch as there are but three corn 
crops [i. e. grain crops] taken in seven years from 
any field, & the first of the wheat crops is followed 
by a Buck Wheat manure for the second Wheat 
Crop, wch. is to succeed it; & which by being laid 
to Clover or Grass & continued therein three years 
will a ford much Mowing or Grassing, according as 
the Seasons happen to be, besides being a restoration 
to the Soil — But the produce of the sale of the 
Crops is small, unless encreased by the improving 
state of the fields. Nor will the Grain for the use of 
the Farm be adequate to the consumption of it in 
this Course, and this is an essential object to at- 
tend to." 

In a second table he estimated the amount of work 
that would be required each year to carry out this 
plan of rotation, assuming that one plow would 
break up three- fourths of an acre per day. This 
amount is hardly half what an energetic farmer 
with a good team of horses will now turn over in a 
day with an ordinary walking plow, but the negro 



CONSERVING THE SOIL 



123 



farmer lacked ambition, the plows were cumber- 
some, and much of the work was done with plodding 
oxen. The table follows : 





1 






a 
< 


>> 


a 

3 


"5 


m 

9 

be 

a 
< 




-3 


No. 8, 75 Acres — Corn and Potatoes 






















Breaking up 


100 


















100 


Laying ofif and listing 


... 


60 














AO 


Crossing for planting. 


10 












10 


Ploughing balks 


70 










70 


Crossing them 










70 








70 


Re-crossing 












70 


75 


... 


70 


So'winp' wheat . 














75 


No.4^ bowmgwheat 

No. 5 V 225 Acres— Clover or Grass 


















No. 6) 

No. 1, 75 Acres — Buckwheat for Manure. 






















/ Breaking up 


100 












• .. 




. .. 


ino 








100 












100 


Ploughing it 










100 






' 


100 


No. 2, 75 Acres— Wheat. Corn Ground.. 




















No. 7, 75 Acres — Wheat or Buckwheat .. 
















100 

175 


-- 


100 


525 Acres 


200 





~m 


no 


"to 


170 


70 


855 



He estimated that seventy-five acres of corn 
would yield, at twelve and a half bushels per acre, 
937 y^ bushels, worth at two shillings and sixpence 
per bushel £117.3.9. In this field potatoes would be 
planted between the rows of corn and would pro- 
duce, at twelve and a half bushels per acre, 937 yi 
bushels, worth at one shilling per bushel £46.17.6. 
Two fields in wheat, a total of one hundred fifty 
acres, at ten bushels per acre, would yield one thou- 
sand five hundred bushels, worth at five shillings per 



124 GEORGE WAiHINGTON— FARMER 

bushel three hundred seventy-five pounds. Three 
fields in clover and grass and the field of buckwheat 
to be turned under for manure would yield no 
money return. In other words the whole farm would 
produce three thousand three hundred seventy-five 
bushels of grain and potatoes worth a total of 
£539.1.3. 

A second alternative plan would yield crops worth 
£614.1.3 ; a third, about the same ; a fourth, £689.1.3 ; 
a fifth, providing for two hundred twenty-five acres 
of wheat, £801.11.0; a sixth, £764. Number five 
would be most productive, but he noted that it would 
seriously reduce the land. Number six would be "the 
2d. most productive Rotation, but the fields receive 
no rest," as it provided for neither grass nor pas- 
ture, while the plowing required would exceed that 
of any of the other plans by two hundred eighty 
days. 

On a small scale he tried growing cotton, Botany 
Bay grass, hemp, white nankeen grass and various 
other products. He experimented with deep soil 
plowing by running twice in the same furrow and 
also cultivated some wheat that had been drilled in 
rows instead of broadcasted. 

In 1793 he built a new sixteen-sided barn on the 




^ ft.-.»^>. m i 



Part of Washington's Plan for His Sixteen-Sided Barn 



CONSERVING THE SOIL 125 

Dogue Run Farm. The plan of this barn, drawn by 
Washington himself, is still preserved and is repro- 
duced herewith. He calculated that one hundred and 
forty thousand bricks would be required for it and 
these were made and burnt upon the estate. The 
barn was particularly notable for a threshing floor 
thirty feet square, with interstices one and a half 
inches wide left between the floor boards so that the 
grain when trodden out by horses or beat out with 
flails would fall through to the floor below, leaving 
the straw above. 

This floor was to furnish an illustration of what 
Washington called "the almost impossibility of put- 
ting the overseers of this country out of the track 
they have been accustomed to walk in. I have one 
of the most convenient barns in this or perhaps any 
other country, where thirty hands may with great 
ease be employed in threshing. Half the wheat of 
the farm was actually stowed in this barn in the 
straw by my order, for threshing; notwithstanding, 
when I came home about the middle of September, 
I found a treading yard not thirty feet from the 
barn-door, the wheat again brought out of the barn, 
and horses treading it out in an open exposure, lia- 
ble to the vicissitudes of the weather." 



126 GEORGE WASpiNGTON-^FARMER 

I think we may safely conclude that this was one 
of those rare occasions when George lost his tem- 
per and "went up in the air !" 

Under any conditions treading or flailing out 
wheat was a slow and unsatisfactory process and, as 
Washington grew great quantities of this grain, he 
was alert for a better method. We know that he 
made inquiries of Arthur Young concerning a 
threshing machine invented by a certain Winlaw and 
pictured and described in volume six of the Annals, 
and in 1790 he watched the operation of Baron 
Poelnitz's mill on the Winlaw model near New York 
City. This mill was operated by two men and was 
capable of threshing about two bushels of wheat per 
hour — pretty slow work as compared with that of a 
modern thresher. And the grain had to be win- 
nowed, or passed through a fan afterward to sepa- 
rate it from the chaff. 

Finally in 1797 he erected a machine on plans 
evolved by William Booker, who came to Mount 
Vernon and oversaw the construction. Next April 
he wrote to Booker that the machine "has by no 
means answered your expectations or mine." At 
first it threshed not quite fifty bushels per day, then 
fell to less than twenty-five, and ultimately got out 



CONSERVING THE SOIL 127 

of order before five hundred bushels had been 
threshed, though it had used up two bands costing 
between eight and ten pounds. Booker repHed that 
he had now greatly improved his invention and 
would come to Mount Vernon and make these ad- 
ditions, but whether or not he ever did so I have 
failed to discover. 

By 1793 the burden of the estate had become so 
heavy that Washington decided to rent all of it ex- 
cept the Mansion House Farm and accordingly he 
wrote to Arthur Young telling his desire in the hope 
that Englishmen might be found to take it over. One 
man, Parkinson, of whom more hereafter, came to 
America and looked at one of the farms, but de- 
cided not to rent it. Washington's elaborate de- 
scription of his land in his letter to Young, with an 
accompanying map, forms one of our best sources 
of information regarding Mount Vernon, so that we 
may be grateful that he had the intention even 
though nothing came of it. The whole of Mount 
Vernon continued to be cultivated as before until 
the last year of his life when he rented Dogue Run 
Farm to his nephew, Lawrence Lewis. 

As a public man he was anxious to improve the 
general state of American agriculture and in his last 



128 GEORGE WASjIINGTON— FARMER 

annual message to Congress recommended the estab- 
lishment of a board of agriculture to collect and dif- 
fuse information and *'by premiums and small pe- 
cuniary aids to encourage and assist a spirit of dis- 
covery and improvement." In this recommendation 
the example of the English Board of Agriculture 
and the influence of his friend Arthur Young are 
discernible. It would have been well for the country 
if Congress had heeded the advice, but public opin- 
ion was not then educated to the need of such a step 
and almost a century passed before anything of 
much importance was done by the national govern- 
ment to improve the state of American agriculture. 
In farming as in politics Washington was no 
standpatter. Notwithstanding many discourage- 
ments, he could not be kept from trying new things, 
and he furnished his farms with every kind of im- 
proved tool and implement calculated to do better 
work. At his death he owned not only threshing 
machines and a Dutch fan, but a wheat drill, a corn 
drill, a machine for gathering clover seed and an- 
other for raking up wheat. Yet most of his coun- 
trymen remained content to drop corn by hand, to 
broadcast their wheat, to tread out their grain and 



CONSERVING THE SOIL 129 

otherwise to follow methods as old as the days of 
Abel for at least another half century. 

He was the first American conservationist. He 
realized that man owes a duty to the future just as 
he owes a debt to the past. He deplored the already 
developing policy of robber exploitation by which 
our soil and forests have been despoiled, for he fore- 
saw the bitter fruits which such a policy must pro- 
duce, and indeed was already producing on the fields 
of Virginia. He was no misanthropic cynic to ex- 
claim, "What has posterity ever done for us that we 
should concern ourselves for posterity?" His care 
for the lands of Mount Vernon was evidence of 
the God-given trait imbedded in the best of men to 
transmit unimpaired to future generations what has 
been handed down to them. 

His agricultural career has its lessons for us, even 
though we should not do well to follow some of his 
methods. The lessons lie rather in his conception of 
farming as an honorable occupation capable of being 
put on a better and more scientific basis by the ap- 
plication of brains and intelligence; in his open- 
minded and progressive seeking after better ways. 
Many of his experiments failed, it is true, but for 



130 GEORGE WASRlNGTON— FARMER 

his time he was a great Farmer, just as he was a 
great Patriot, Soldier and Statesman. Patient, hard- 
working, methodical, willing to sacrifice his own in- 
terests to those of the general good, he was one of 
those men who have helped raise mankind from the 
level of the brute and his whole career reflects credit 
upon human nature. 

Peace hath its victories no less renowned than 
war, and the picture of the American Cincinnatus 
striving as earnestly on the green fields of Mount 
Vernon as he did upon the scarlet ones of Mon- 
mouth and Brandywine, is one that the world can 
not afford to forget. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE STOCKMAN 

AT various times in his career Washington 
y\ raised deer, turkeys, hogs, cattle, geese, ne- 
groes and various other forms of live stock, but his 
greatest interest seems to have been reserved for 
horses, sheep and mules. 

From his diaries and other papers that have come 
down to us it is easy to see that during his early 
married life he paid most attention to his horses. 
In 1760 he kept a stallion both for his own mares 
and for those of his neighbors, and we find many 
entries concerning the animal. Successors were 
"Leonidas," "Samson," "Steady," "Traveller" and 
"Magnolia," the last a full-blooded Arabian and 
probably the finest beast he ever owned. When away 
from home Washington now and then directed the 
manager to advertise the animal then reigning or 
to exhibit him in public places such as fairs. Mares 
brought to the stallion were kept upon pasture, and 

131 



132 GEORGE WAiHINGTON— FARMER 

foal was guaranteed. Many times the General com- 
plained of the difficulty of collecting fees. 

During the Revolution he bought twenty-seven 
worn-out army mares for breeding purposes and 
soon after he became President he purchased at Lan- 
caster, Pennsylvania, thirteen fine animals for the 
same use. These last cost him a total of £317.17.6, 
the price of the highest being £25.7.6 and of the 
cheapest £22.10. These mares were unusually good 
animals, as an ordinary beast would have cost only 
five or six pounds. 

In November, 1785, he had on his various Mount 
Vernon farms a total of one hundred thirty horses, 
including the Arabian already mentioned. Among 
the twenty-one animals kept at the Mansion House 
were his old war horses "Nelson" and "Blewskin," 
who after bearing their master through the smoke 
and dangers of many battles lived in peace to a ripe 
old age on the green fields of Virginia. 

In his last days he bought two of the easy-gaited 
animals known as Narragansetts, a breed, some 
readers will recall, described at some length by 
Cooper in The Last of the Mohicans. A peculiarity 
of these beasts was that they moved both legs on a 
side forward at the same time, that is, they were 



THE STOCKMAN 133 

pacers. Washington's two proved somewhat skittish, 
and one of them was responsible for the only fall 
from horseback that we have any record of his re- 
ceiving. In company with Major Lewis, Mr. Peake, 
young George Washington Custis and a groom he 
was returning in the evening from Alexandria and 
dismounted for a few moments near a fire on the 
roadside. When he attempted to mount again the 
horse sprang forward suddenly and threw him. The 
others jumped from their horses to assist him, but 
the old man got up quickly, brushed his clothes and 
explained that he had been thrown only because he 
had not yet got seated. All the horses meanwhile 
had run away and the party started to walk four 
miles home, but luckily some negroes along the road 
caught the fugitives and brought them back. Wash- 
ington insisted upon mounting his animal again and 
rode home without further incident. This episode 
happened only a few weeks before his death. 

Like every farmer he found that his horses had a 
way of growing old. Those with which he had per- 
sonal associations, like "Blueskin" and "Nelson," 
he kept until they died of old age. With others he 
sometimes followed a different course. In 1792 we 
find his manager, Whiting, writing: "We have sev- 



134 GEORGE W^HINGTON— FARMER 

eral Old Horses that are not worth keeping thro 
winter. One at Ferry has not done one days work 
these 18 Months. 2 at Muddy hole one a horse with 
the Pole evil which I think will not get well the other 
an Old Mare was not capable of work last summer. 
Likewise the Horse called old Chatham and the 
Lame Horse that used to go in the Waggon now in a 
one horse Cart. If any thing could be Got for them 
it might be well but they are not worth keeping after 
Christmas." No doubt a sentimental person would 
say that Washington ought to have kept these old 
servants, but he had many other superannuated serv- 
ants of the human kind upon his hands, so he replied 
that Whiting might dispose of the old horses **as you 
judge best for my interest." 

Now and then his horses met with accidents. Thus 
on February 22, 1760, his horse "Jo^ty" got his right 
foreleg "mashed to pieces,'* probably by a falling 
limb. "Did it up as well as I could this night." "Sat- 
urday, Feb. 23d. Had the Horse Slung upon Can- 
vas and his leg fresh set, following Markleham's di- 
rections as well as I could." Two days later the 
horse fell out of the sling and hurt himself so badly 
that he had to be killed. 

Of Washington's skill as a trainer of horses his 
friend De Chastellux writes thus: "The weather 



THE STOCKMAN 135 

being fair, on the 26th, I got on horseback, after 
breakfasting with the general — he was so attentive 
as to give me the horse he rode, the day of my ar- 
rival, which I had greatly commended — I found 
him as good as he is handsome; but above all, per- 
fectly well broke, and well trained, having a good 
mouth, easy in hand, and stopping short in a gallop 
without bearing the bit — I mention these minute 
particulars, because it is the general himself who 
breaks all his own horses ; and he is a very excellent 
and bold horseman, leaping the highest fences, and 
going extremely quick, without standing upon his 
stirrups, bearing on the bridle, or letting his horse 
run wild, — circumstances which young men look 
upon as so essential a part of English horsemanship, 
that they would rather break a leg or an arm than 
renounce them." 

Comparatively few farmers in Virginia kept 
sheep, yet as early as 1758 Washington's overseer 
at Mount Vernon reported sixty-five old sheep and 
forty-eight lambs; seven years later the total num- 
ber was one hundred fifty-six. The next year he 
records that he "put my English Ram Lamb to 65 
Ewes," so that evidently he was trying to improve 
the breed. What variety this ram belonged to he 
does not say. Near the end of his career he had some 



136 GEORGE WAiHINGTON— FARMER 

of Bakewell's breed, an English variety that put on 
fat rapidly and hence were particularly desirable for 
mutton. 

During his long absences from home his sheep 
suffered grievously, for sheep require a skilled care 
that few of his managers or overseers knew how to 
give. But sheep were an important feature of the 
English agriculture that he imitated, and he per- 
sisted in keeping them. In 1793 he had over six 
hundred. 

"Before I left home in the spring of 1789," he 
wrote to Arthur Young, "I had improved that spe- 
cies of my stock so much as to get 5}i lbs of Wool 
as the average of the fleeces of my whole flock, — 
and at the last shearing they did not yield me 2 J/2 
lbs. — By procuring (if I am able) good rams and 
giving the necessary attention, I hope to get them up 
again for they are with me, as you have declared 
them to be with you, that part of my stock in which 
I most delight." 

In 1789, by request, he sent Young "a fleece of 
a midling size and quality." Young had this made 
up into cloth and returned it to the General. 

In 1793 we find our Farmer giving such instruc- 
tions to Whiting as to cull out the unthrifty sheep 



THE STOCKMAN 137 

and transform them into mutton and to choose a 
few of the best young males to keep as rams. Whit- 
ing, however, did not manage the flock well, for the 
following February we find Pearce, the new mana- 
ger, writing: 

*T am sorry to have to inform you that the stock 
of sheep at Both Union and Dogue Run farms are 
Some of them Dicing Every Week — & a great many 
of Them will be lost, let what will be done — Since 
I came I have had shelters made for them & Troughs 
to feed them In & to give them salt — & have at- 
tended to them myself & was In hopes to have saved 
those that I found to be weak, but they were too far 
gone — and Several of the young Cattle at Dogue 
Run was past all Recovery when I come & some have 
died already & several more I am afifraid must die 
before spring, they are so very poor and weak." 

Washington, according to his own account, was 
the first American to attempt the raising of mules. 
Soon after the Revolution he asked our representa- 
tive in Spain to ascertran whether it would be possi- 
ble "to procure permission to extract a Jack ass of 
the best breed." At that time the exportation of these 
animals from Spain was forbidden by law, but Flor- 
ida Blanca, the Spanish minister of state, brought 



138 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

the matter to the attention of the king, who in a fit 
of generosity proceeded to send the American hero 
two jacks and two jennets. One of the jacks died 
on the way over, but the other animals, in charge of 
a Spanish caretaker, reached Boston, and Washing- 
ton despatched an overseer to escort them to Mount 
Vernon, where they arrived on the fifth of Decem- 
ber, 1785. An interpreter named Captain Sullivan 
was brought down from Alexandria, and through 
him the General propounded to the caretaker many 
grave inquiries regarding the care of the beasts, the 
answers being carefully set down in writing. 

"Royal Gift," as he was duly christened, probably 
by the negro groom, Peter, who seems to have con- 
sidered it beneath his dignity to minister to any but 
royalty, was a large animal. According* to careful 
measurements taken on the porch at Mount Vernon 
he was fifteen hands high, and his body and limbs 
were very large in proportion to his height ; his ears 
were fourteen inches long, and his vocal cords were 
good. He was, however, a sluggish 'beast, and the 
sea voyage had affected him so unfavorably that for 
some time he was of little use. In letters to Lafay- 
ette and others Washington cotiimented facetiously 
upon the beast's failure to appreciate "republican en- 










^ ^ 






)M 






.IT'^ 














00 



.§ 






O 



o 

M-l 
OS 



m 



3<-ivS>, 



THE STOCKMAN 139 

joyment." Ultimately, however, *'Royal Gift" re- 
covered his strength and ambition and proved a val- 
uable piece of property. He was presently sent on a 
lour of the South, and while in South Carolina was 
in the charge of Colonel William Washington, a 
hero of the Cowpens and many other battles. The 
profits from the tour amounted to $678.64, yet poor 
"Royal Gift" seems to have experienced some rough 
usage on the way thither, arriving lame and thin and 
in a generally debilitated condition. The General 
wrote to the Colonel about it thus : 

"From accounts which I have received from some 
gentlemen in Virginia he was most abominably 
treated on the journey by the man to whom he was 
entrusted; — for, instead of moving him slowly and 
steadily along as he ought, he was prancing (with 
the Jack) from one public meeting or place to an- 
other in a gate which could not but prove injurious 
to an animal who had hardly ever been out of a walk 
before — and afterward, I presume, (in order to re- 
cover lost time) rushed him beyond what he was 
able to bear the remainder of the journey." 

No doubt the beast aroused great curiosity along 
the way among people who had never before set eyes 
upon such a creature. We can well believe that the 



140 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

cry, "General Washington's jackass is coming!" was 
always sufficient to attract a gaping crowd. And 
many would be the sage comments upon the animal's 
voice and appearance. 

In 1786 Lafayette sent Washington from the 
island of Malta another jack and two jennets, be- 
sides some Chinese pheasants and partridges. The 
animals landed at Baltimore in November and 
reached Mount Vernon in good condition later in 
the month. To Campion, the man who accompanied 
them, Washington gave "30 Louis dores for his 
trouble." The new jack, the "Knight of Malta," as 
he was called, was a smaller beast than "Royal 
Gift," and his ears measured only twelve inches, but 
he was well formed and had the ferocity of a tiger. 

By crossing the two strains Washington ultimately 
obtained a jack called "Compound," who united in 
his person the size and strength of the "Gift" with 
the courage and activity of the "Knight." The Gen- 
eral also raised many mules, which he found to be 
good workers and more cheaply kept in condition 
than horses. 

Henceforward the peaceful quiet of Mount Ver- 
non was broken many times a day by sounds which, 



THE STOCKMAN 141 

if not musical or mellifluous, were at least jubilant 
and joyous. 

Evidently the sounds in no way disturbed the 
General, for in 1788 we find him describing the ac- 
quisitions in enthusiastic terms to Arthur Young. He 
called the mules "a very excellent race of animals," 
cheap to keep and willing workers. Recalling, per- 
haps, that a king's son once rode upon a mule, he 
proposes to breed heavy ones from "Royal Gift" for 
draft purposes and lighter ones from the "Knight" 
for saddle or carriage. He adds : "Indeed in a few 
years, I intend to drive no other in my carriage, hav- 
ing appropriated for the sole purpose of breeding 
them, upwards of twenty of my best mares." 

Ah, friend George, what would the world not give 
to see thee and thy wife Martha driving in the 
Mount Vernon coach down Pennsylvania Avenue 
behind four such long-eared beasts ! 

In all his stock raising, as in most other matters, 
Washington was greatly hampered by the careless- 
ness of his overseers and slaves. It is notorious that 
free negroes will often forget or fail to water and 
feed their own horses, and it may easily be believed 
that when not influenced by fear, slaves would neg- 



142 GEORGE W/^INGTON— FARMER 

lect the stock of their master. Among the GeneraFs 
papers I have found a Hst of the animals that died 
upon his Mount Vernon estate from April 16, 1789, 
to December 25, 1790. In that period of about 
twenty months he lost thirty-three horses, thirty-two 
cattle and sixty-five sheep ! Considering the number 
of stock he had, a fifth of that loss would have been 
excessive. During most of the period he was away 
from home looking after the affairs of the nation 
and in his absence his own affairs suffered. 

Hardly a report of his manager did not contain 
some bad news. Thus one of January, 1791, states 
that "the Young black Brood Mare, with a long tail, 
which Came from Pennsylvania, said to be four 
Years old next spring . . . was found with her 
thigh broke quite in two." This happened on the 
Mansion House farm. On another farm a sheep was 
reported to have been killed by dogs while a second 
had died suddenly, perhaps from eating some poi- 
sonous plant. 

Dogs, in fact, constituted an ever present menace 
to the sheep and it was only by constant watchful- 
ness that the owner kept his negroes from overrun- 
ning the place with worthless curs. In 1792 he wrote 
to his manager : "I not only approve of your killing 



THE STOCKMAN 143 

those Dogs which have been the occasion of the late 
loss, & of thinning the Plantations of others, but 
give it as a positive order that after saying what 
dog, or dogs shall remain, if any negro presumes 
under any pretence whatsoever, to preserve, or bring 
one into the family, that he shall be severely pun- 
ished, and the dog hanged. — I was obliged to adopt 
this practice whilst I resided at home, and from the 
same motive, that is for the preservation of my 
Sheep and Hogs. . . . It is not for any good 
purpose Negroes raise, and keep dogs; but to aid 
them in their night robberies; for it is astonishing 
to see the command under which the dogs are." 

After the Revolution, in imitation of English 
farmers, he made use of hurdles in pasturing sheep 
and milk cows. Thereby he secured more even dis- 
tribution of the manure, which was one of his main 
objects in raising stock. 

Washington's interest in cattle seems to have been 
less intense than was the case with some other kinds 
of stock. He always had a great number of cows, 
bulls, oxen and calves upon his farms — in 1793 over 
three hundred "black cattle" of all sorts. He was ac- 
customed to brand his cattle with the letters "G. 
W.," the location of the brand on the body indicat- 



144 GEORGE WAiHINGTON— FARMER 

ing the farm on which the beast was raised. To what 
extent he endeavored to improve the breed of his 
cattle I am unable to say, but I have found that as 
early as 1770 he owned an English bull, which in 
July he killed and sold to the crew of the British 
frigate Boston, which lay in the Potomac off his 
estate. In 1797 he made inquiries looking toward 
the purchase of an improved bull calf from a cattle 
breeder named Gough, but upon learning that the 
price was two hundred dollars he decided not to 
invest. Gough, however, heard of Washington's 
interest in his animals, and being an admirer of the 
General, gave him a calf. An English farmer, 
Parkinson, who saw the animal in 1798, describes 
him in terms the reverse of enthusiastic, and of this 
more hereafter. 

A large part of the heavy work on all the farms 
was done by oxen. In November, 1785, there were 
thirteen yoke of these beasts on the Mount Vernon 
estate and the number was sometimes still larger. In 
1786 Washington recorded putting "a Collar on a 
large Bull in order to break him to the draft. — at 
first he was sulky and restive but came to by de- 
grees." The owner always aimed to have enough 
oxen broken so that none would have to be worked 



THE STOCKMAN 145 

too hard, but he did not always succeed in his aim. 
When they attained the age of eight years the oxen 
were usually fattened and killed for beef. 

The management of the milk cows seems to have 
been very poor. In May, 1793, we find the absent 
owner writing to his manager: "If for the sake of 
making a little butter ( for which I shall get scarcely 
anything) my calves are starved, & die, it may be 
compared to stopping the spigot, and opening the 
faucit." Evidently the making of butter was almost 
totally discontinued, for in his last instructions, com- 
pleted only a few days before his death, he wrote : 
"And It is hoped and will be expected, that more 
effectual measures will be pursued to make butter 
another year; for it is almost beyond belief, that 
from 101 Cows actually reported on a late enumera- 
tion of the Cattle, that I am obliged to buy butter for 
the use of my family." 

In his later years he became somewhat interested 
in the best methods of feeding cattle and once sug- 
gested that the experiment be tried of fattening one 
bullock on potatoes, another on corn, and a third on 
a mixture of both, "keeping an exact account of the 
time they are fatting, and what is eaten of each, and 
of hay, by the different steers; that a judgment may 



146 GEORGE WAlftllNGTON— FARMER 

be formed of the best and least expensive mode of 
stall feeding beef for market, or for my own use." 

During his early farming operations his swine 
probably differed little if at all from the razor-backs 
of his neighbors. They ranged half wild in the 
woods in summer and he once expressed the opinion 
that fully half the pigs raised were stolen by the 
slaves, who loved roast pork fully as well as did 
their master. In the fall the shoats were shut up to 
fatten. More than a hundred were required each 
year to furnish meat for the people on the estate; 
the average weight was usually less than one hun- 
dred forty pounds. Farmers in the Middle West 
would to-day have their Poland Chinas or Durocs 
of the same age weighing two hundred fifty to three 
hundred pounds. Still the smallness of Washington's 
animals does not necessarily indicate such bad man- 
agement as may at first glance appear. Until of con- 
siderable size the pigs practically made their own 
living, eating roots and mast in the woods, and they 
did not require much grain except during fattening 
time. And, after all, as the story has it, "what's 
time to a hawg?" 

In his later years he seems to have taken more 
interest in his pigs. By 1786 he had decided that 



THE STOCKMAN 147 

when fattening they ought to be put into closed 
pens with a plank floor, a roof, running water and 
good troughs. A visitor to Mount Vernon in 1798 
says that he had "about 150 of the Guinea kind, with 
short legs and hollow back," so it is evident that he 
was experimenting with new breeds. These Guinea 
swine were red in color, and it is said that the breed 
was brought to America from west Africa by slave 
traders. It was to these animals that Washington 
fed the by-products of his distillery. 

In the slaughtering of animals he tried experi- 
ments as he did in so many other matters. In 1768 
he killed a wether sheep which weighed one hundred 
three pounds gross. He found that it made sixty 
pounds of meat worth three pence per pound, five 
and a half of tallow at seven and a half pence, three 
of wool at fifteen pence, and the skin was worth one 
shilling and three pence, a total of £1.3.5. One ob- 
ject of such experiments was to ascertain whether 
it was more profitable to butcher animals or sell them 
on the hoof. 

Washington also raised chickens, turkeys, swans, 
ducks, geese and various other birds and beasts. In 
1788 Gouverneur Morris sent him two Chinese pigs 
and with them "a pair of Chinese geese, which are 



148 GEORGE W^^INGTON— FARMER 

really the foolishest geese I ever beheld; for they 
choose all times for setting but in the spring, and 
one of them is even now [November] actually en- 
gaged in that business.'* Of some golden pheasants 
that had been brought from China the General said 
that before seeing the birds he had considered that 
pictures of them must be "only works of fancy, but 
now I find them to be only Portraits." 

The fact is that his friends and admirers sent 
him so many feathered or furred creatures that to- 
ward the end of his life he was the proprietor of a 
considerable zoo. 

Notwithstanding mismanagement by his em- 
ployees and slaves, Washington accumulated much 
valuable domestic stock. In his will, made the year 
of his death, he lists the following: "1 Covering 
horse, 5 Cob. horses — 4 Riding do — Six brood 
mares — 20 working horses and mares, — 2 Cover- 
ing jacks & 3 young ones 10 she asses — 42 working 
mules — 15 younger ones. 329 head of horned cat- 
tle. 640 head of Sheep, and the large stock of hogs, 
the precise number unknown.'* He further states 
that his manager believes the stock worth seven 
thousand pounds, but he conservatively sets it down 
at fifteen thousand six hundred fifty-three dollars., 



CHAPTER X 

THE HORTICULTURIST AND LANDSCAPE GARDENER 

WASHINGTON'S work as a horticulturist 
prior to the educating influences of the Rev- 
olution was mostly utilitarian. That he had a peacK 
orchard as early as 1760 is proven by an entry in 
his diary for February 22 : "Laid in part, the Worm 
of a fence round the Peach orchard." Just where 
this orchard stood I am not quite certain, but it was 
probably on the slope near the old tomb. 

He learned how to propagate and "wed" his own 
trees and in 1763 was particularly active. On March 
21st he recorded that he had "Grafted 40 cherries, 
•viz 12 Bullock Hearts, 18 very fine May Cherry, 10 
Coronation. Also grafted 12 ^Magnum Bonum 
Plums. Also planted 4 Nuts of the Mediterranean 
Pame in the Pen where the Chestnut' grows — sticks 
by East. Note, the Cherrys and Plums 'came from 
Collo. Masons Nuts from Mr. Gr [een'sj^et out 
55 cuttings of the Madeira Grape." 

149 



150 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

A little later he grafted quinces on pear and apple 
stocks; also he grafted "Spanish pairs," "Butter 
pears," "Bergamy Pears," "Newtown Pippins," "43 
of the Maryland Red Strick," etc., and transplanted 
thirty-five young crab scions. These scions he ob- 
tained by planting the pumice of wild crab apples 
from which cider had been made. They were sup- 
posed to make hardier stocks than those grown from 
ordinary seeds. 

He grafted many cherries, plums, etc., in March, 
1764, and yet again in the spring of 1765, when he 
put English mulberry scions on wild mulberry 
stocks. In that year "Peter Green came to me a 
Gardener." In 1768 and 1771 he planted grapes in 
the inclosure below the vegetable garden and in 
March, 1775, he again grafted cherries and also 
planted peach seeds and seeds of the "Mississippi 
nut" or pecan. 

Long before this he had begun to gather fruits 
from his early trees and vines. Being untroubled 
by San Jose scale and many other pests that now 
make life miserable to the fruit grower, he grew 
fine products and no doubt enjoyed them. 

His esthetic sense was not yet fully developed, but 
he was always desirous of having his possessions 



HORTICULTURIST 151 

make a good appearance, and by 1768 was beginning 
to think of beautifying his grounds. In that year he 
expressed a wish that he later carried out, namely 
to have about his mansion house every possible speci- 
men of native tree or shrub noted for beauty of 
form, leaf or flower. 

Even amid the trials of the Revolution this desire 
was not forgotten. In 1 782 he directed Lund Wash- 
ington, his manager, to plant locusts and other orna- 
mental trees and shrubs at the ends of the house. He 
wrote that such trees would be more likely to live if 
taken from the open fields than from the woods be- 
cause the change of environment would be less pro- 
nounced. To what extent the work was carried I 
have been unable to ascertain, for, as elsewhere 
stated, very little of his correspondence with his 
manager during these years survives. 

He returned from the Revolution with a strong 
desire to beautify his estate, a desire in part due no 
doubt to seeing beautiful homes elsewhere and to 
contact with cultured people, both Americans and 
foreigners. One of his first tasks was to rebuild and 
enlarge his house. From a small house of eight 
rooms he transformed Mount Vernon into the pres- 
ent large mansion, ninety-six feet and four inches 



152 GEORGE W.^INGTON~FARMER 

long by thirty-two feet in depth, with two floors and 
an attic, an immense cellar and the magnificent por- 
tico overlooking the Potomac. The plans and speci- 
fications he drew with his own hands, and those who 
have visited the place will hardly deny that the man- 
sion fits well into its setting and that, architects tell 
us, is a prime consideration. The flagstones for the 
floor of the portico he imported from Whitehaven, 
England, and these still remain in place, though 
many are cracked or broken. 

The portico runs the entire length of the house, is 
over fourteen feet deep and its floor is one hundred 
twenty- four feet ten and one-half inches above high 
water-mark, according to calculations made by 
Washington himself. From it one commands miles 
of the Potomac and of the Maryland shore and there 
are few such noble prospects in America. Wash- 
ington owned a telescope and spy glasses and with 
them could watch the movements of ships and boats 
on the river. The portico was a sort of try sting place 
for the family and visitors on summer afternoons 
and evenings, and some of the thirty or so Windsor 
chairs bought for it are still in existence. 

This was the second time our Farmer reconstructed 
his house, as in 1758-60 he had made numerous al- 




West Front of Mansion House, Showing Bowling Green and 
Part of Serpentine Drive 




Experimental Plot, with Servants' Quarters (restored) in Background 



HORTICULTURIST 1 53 

terations * In 1758 he paid John Patterson £328.0.5 
for work done upon it, and the whole house was 
pretty thoroughly renovated and remodeled in prep- 
aration for the reception of a new mistress. In 
March, 1760, we find the owner contracting with 
William Triplett "to build me two houses in front 
of my house (plastering them also) and running 
walls to them from the great house and from the 
great house to the washouse and kitchen also." By 
the *' front" he means the west front, as that part 
toward the river is really the rear of the mansion. 
Hitherto the house had stood detached and these 
walls were the originals of the colonnades, still a 
noticeable feature of the building. 

Owing to the absence of a diary of his home ac- 
tivities during 1784 we can not trace in detail his 
work that year upon either his house or grounds, but 
we know such facts as that he was ordering ma- 
terials for the house and that he had his French 
friend Malesherbes and others collecting vines and 
plants for him. 

With January 1, 1785, he began a new diary, and 



* In 1775 a Frenchman was engaged to panel the main hall 
and apply stucco ornaments to the ceilings of the parlor and 
dining-room. 



154 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

from it we ascertain that on the twelfth, on a ride 
about his estate, he observed many trees and shrubs 
suitable for transplanting. Thereafter he rarely rode 
out without noticing some crab, holly, magnolia, 
pine or other young tree that would serve his pur- 
pose. He was more alive to the beauties of nature 
than he had once been, or at least more inclined to 
comment upon them. On an April day he notes that 
"the flower of the Sassafras was fully out and 
looked well — an intermixture of this and Red bud 
I conceive would look very pretty — the latter 
crowned with the former or vice versa." He was no 
gushing spring poet, but when the sap was running, 
the flowers blooming and the birds singing he felt it 
all in his heart — perhaps more deeply than do some 
who say more about it. 

On January 19th of this year he began laying out 
his grounds on a new plan. This plan, as completed, 
provided for sunken walls or "Haw has!" at the 
ends of the mansion, and on the west front a large 
elliptical lawn or bowling green such as still exists 
there. Along the sides of the lawn he laid out a ser- 
pentine drive or carriage way, to be bordered with a 
great variety of shade trees on each side and a 
"Wilderness" on the outside. At the extreme west, 



HORTICULTURIST 155 

where the entrance stood, the trees were omitted so 
that from the house one could see down a long vista, 
cut through the oaks and evergreens, the lodge gate 
three-quarters of a mile away. On each side of the 
opening in the lawn stood a small artificial mound, 
and just in front of the house a sun-dial by which 
each day, when the weather was clear, he set his 
watch. A sun-dial stands on the same spot now but, 
alas, it is not the original. That was given away or 
sold by one of the subsequent owners. 

This same spring our Farmer records planting 
ivy, limes and lindens sent by his good friend Gov- 
ernor Clinton of New York; lilacs, mock oranges, 
aspen, mulberries, black gums, berried thorns, lo- 
custs, sassafras, magnolia, crabs, service berries, ca- 
talpas, papaws, honey locusts, a live oak from Nor- 
folk, yews, aspens, swamp berries, hemlocks, twelve 
horse chestnut sent by "Light Horse Harry" Lee, 
twelve cuttings of tree box, buckeye nuts brought by 
him the preceding year from the mouth of Cheat 
River, eight nuts from a tree called "the Kentucke 
Coffee tree," a row of shell bark hickory nuts from 
New York, some filberts from "sister Lewis." His 
brother John sent him four barrels of holly seeds, 
which he sowed in the semicircle north of the front 



156 GEORGE WA^INGTON— FARMER 

gate ; in the south semicircle, from the kitchen to the 
south "Haw ha !" ; and from the servants' hall to the 
north "Haw ha!" 

Nor did he neglect more utilitarian work, for in 
April he grafted many cherries, pears and other 
fruit trees. Such work was continued at intervals 
till his death. 

In raising fruit, as in many other things, he was 
troubled by the thieving propensities of the slaves. 
September tenth of this year he records that because 
of the scarcity of apples and the depredations that 
were being committed "every Night upon the few I 
have, I found it necessary (tho much too early) to 
gather and put them up for Winter use." 

The spring of 1785 proved an exceptionally dry 
one and he was forced to be absent from home sev- 
eral days, leaving the care of the trees and shrubs to 
his careless lazy servants. He records that they said 
that they watered them according to directions, but 
he seems to doubt it. At all events, "Most of my 
transplanted trees have a sickly look. — The small 
Pines in the Wilderness &re entirely dead. — The 
larger ones in the Walks, for the most part appear 
to be alive (as yet) — almost the whole of the Holly 
are dead — many of the Ivy, wch. before looked 



HORTICULTURIST 157 

healthy & well seem to be declining — few of the 
Crab trees had put forth leaves; not a single Ash 
tree has unfolded its buds; whether owing to the 
trees declining or any other cause, I know not . . . 
The lime trees, which had some appearance of Bud- 
ding when I went away, are now withering — and 
the Horse chestnut & Tree box from Colo. Harry 
Lee's discover little signs of shooting. — the Hem- 
lock is almost entirely dead, & bereft of their leaves; 
— and so are the live Oak. — In short half the Trees 
in the Shrubberies & many in the Walk are dead & 
declin[in]g." 

Nevertheless he refused to be discouraged and 
proceeded to plant forty-eight mahogany tree seeds 
brought by his nephew, George A. Washington, 
from the West Indies. He also set out a "Palmetto 
Royal" in the garden and sowed or planted sand- 
box trees, palmettos, physic nuts, pride of Chinas, 
live oaks, accacias, bird peppers, "Caya pepper," 
privet, guinea grass, and a great variety of Chinese 
grasses, the names of which, such as "In che fa/' 
"all san fa" "se Ion fa/' he gravely set down in his 
diary. 

The dry weather continued and presently he notes 
that all the poplars, black gums and pines, most of 



158 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

the mulberries, all of the crab apples and papaws, 
most of the hemlock and sassafras, and several of 
the cedars are dead, while the tops of the live oaks 
are dead but shoots are coming up from the trunks 
and roots. The Chinese grasses are in a bad way, 
and those that have come up are almost entirely 
destroyed either by insects or drought. None of this 
grass survived the winter, though he took the 
trouble to cover it with straw. 

During the fall of 1785 and spring of 1786 he 
sowed the lawn with English grass seeds, replaced 
the dead trees in the serpentine walks and shrub- 
beries, and sent two hundred and fifteen apple trees 
to his River Plantation. He made the two low 
mounds already mentioned and planted thereon 
weeping willows. He set out stocks of imported 
hawthorns, four yellow jessamines, twenty-five of 
the Palinurus for hedges, forty-six pistacia nuts and 
seventy-five pyramidical cypress, which last were 
brought to him by the botanist Michaux from the 
King of France. As 1786 was one of the wettest 
summers ever known, his plants and trees lived bet- 
ter than they had done the preceding year. 

During this period and until the end of his life 
he was constantly receiving trees and shrubs from 



HORTICULTURIST 159 

various parts of the world. Thus in 1794 he sent 
to Alexandria by Thomas Jefferson a bundle of 
"Poccon [pecan] or Illinois nut," which in some 
way had come to him at Philadelphia. He instructed 
the gardener to set these out at Mount Vernon, also 
to sow some seeds of the East India hemp that had 
been left in his care. The same year thirty-nine 
varieties of tropical plants, including the bread fruit 
tree, came to him from a well wisher in Jamaica, 
At other times he sowed seeds of the cucumber 
tree, chickory and "colliflower" and planted ivy and 
wild honeysuckle. Again he once more planted pe- 
cans and hickory nuts. It can hardly be that at his 
advanced age he expected to derive any personal 
good from either of these trees, but he was very 
fond of nuts, eating great quantities for dessert, and 
the liking inclined him to grow trees that produced 
them. In this, as in many other matters, he planted 
for the benefit of posterity. 

In order to care for his exotic plants he built 
adjoining the upper garden a considerable conserva- 
tory or hothouse. In this he placed many of the 
plants sent to him as presents and also purchased 
many others from the collection of the celebrated 
botanist, John Bartram, at Philadelphia. The struc- 



160 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

ture, together with the servants' quarters adjoining, 
was burned down in December, 1835, and when the 
historian Lossing visited Mount Vernon in 1858 
nothing remained of these buildings except bare 
walls crumbling to decay. Of the movable plants 
that had belonged to Washington there remained in 
1858 only a lemon tree, a century plant and a sago 
palm, all of which have since died. The conserva- 
tory and servants* quarters have, however, been 
rebuilt and the conservatory restocked with plants 
such as Washington kept in it. The buildings prob- 
ably look much as they did in his time. 

One of the sights to-day at Mount Vernon is the 
formal garden, which all who have visited the place 
will remember. Strangely enough it seems impos- 
sible to discover exactly when this was laid out as 
it now stands. The guides follow tradition and tell 
visitors that Washington set out the box hedge, the 
principal feature, after his marriage, and that .he 
told Martha that she should be mistress of this 
flower garden and he the master of the vegetable 
garden. It is barely possible that he did set out the 
hedges at that time, but, if so, it must have been in 
1759, for no mention is made of it in the diary 
begun in 1760. In April, 1785, we find by his diary 



HORTICULTURIST 161 

that he planted twelve cuttings of the "tree box" 
and again in the spring of 1787 he planted in his 
shrubberies some holly trees, "also . . . some of 
the slips of the tree box." But of box hedges I can 
find no mention in any of the papers I have seen. 
One guess is about as good as another, and I am 
inclined to believe that if they were planted in his 
time, it was done during his presidency by one of 
his gardeners, perhaps Butler or the German, Ehler. 
They may have been set out long after his death. 
At all events the garden was modeled after the 
formal gardens of Europe and the idea was not 
original with him. 

East of the formal garden lies a plot of ground 
that he used for agricultural experiments. The 
vegetable garden was south of the Bowling Green 
and separated from it by a brick wall. Here utility 
was lord and a great profusion of products was 
raised for the table. Washington took an interest 
in its management and I have found an entry in his 
diary recording the day that green peas were avail- 
able for the first time that year. Evidently he was 
fond of them. 

The bent of our Farmer's mind was to the prac- 
tical, yet he took pride in the appearance of his 



162 GEORGE W/^INGTON— FARMER 

estate. "I shall begrudge no reasonable expense that 
will contribute to the improvement and neatness of 
my farms," he wrote one of his managers, "for 
nothing pleases me better than to see them in good 
order, and everything trim, handsome, and thriving 
about them ; nor nothing hurts me more than to find 
them otherwise." 

Live hedges tend to make a place look well and it 
was probably this and his passion for trees that 
caused Washington to go in extensively for hedges 
about his farms. They took the place of wooden 
fences and saved trees arid also grew more trees 
and bushes. His ordinary course in building a fence 
was to have a trench dug on each side of the line 
and the dirt thrown toward the center. Upon the 
ridge thus formed he built a post and rail fence and 
along it planted cedars, locusts, pines, briars or 
thorn bushes to discourage cattle and other stock. 
The trenches not only increased the efficiency of the 
fence but also served as ditches. In many places 
they are still discernible. The lines of the hedges 
are also often marked in many places by trees which, 
though few or none can be the originals, are de- 
scended from the roots or seeds of those trees. 
Cedar and locust trees are particularly noticeable. 







^r.r 






. /^* ;i7^, ^ iT^ ,'i.;h^ .^ ^-^.^ ':??-iLrf. z^''^. ''^(-^ *- 
' « XV . Jf^QO^ -TL^--* U^yH.^ ^fi^'OiPTUt, 






First Page of the Diary for 1760 



HORTICULTURIST 163 

In 1794 our Farmer had five thousand whitethorn 
sent from England for hedge purposes, but they 
arrived late in the spring and few survived and even 
these did not thrive very well. Another time he sent 
from Philadelphia two bushels of honey locust seed 
to be planted in his nursery. These are only in- 
stances of his activities in this direction. 

Much of what he undertook as a planter of trees 
failed for one reason or another, most of all because 
he attended to the business of his country at the ex- 
pense of his own, but much that he attempted suc- 
ceeded and enough still remains to enable us to real- 
ize that by his efforts he made his estate attractive. 
He was no Barbarian or Philistine. He had a sense 
of beauty and it is only in recent years that his 
countrymen, absorbed in material undertakings, 
have begun to appreciate the things that he was 
enjoying so long ago. 

"The visitor at Mount Vernon still finds a charm 
no art alone could give, in trees from various climes, 
each a witness of the taste that sought, or the love 
that sent them, in fields which the desolating step 
of war reverently passed by, in flowers whose root 
is not in graves, yet tinged with the lifeblood of the 
heart that cherished them from childhood to old 



164 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER ' 

age. On those acres we move beneath the shade or 
shelter of the invisible tree which put forth what- 
ever meets the eye, and has left some sign on each 
object, large or small. Still planted beside his river, 
he brings forth fruit in his season. Nor does his 
leaf wither/' 



CHAPTER XI 

WHITE SERVANTS AND OVERSEERS 

IN colonial Virginia, as in most other new coun- 
tries, one of the greatest problems that con- 
fronted the settlers was that of labor. It took hu- 
man muscle to clear away the forest and tend the 
crops, and the quantity of human muscle available 
was small. One solution of the problem was the 
importation of black slaves, and of this solution as 
it concerned Washington something will be said in 
a separate chapter. Another solution was the white 
indentured servant. 

Some of these white servants were political of- 
fenders, such as the followers of Monmouth, who 
were punished by transportation for a term of years 
or for life to the plantations. Others were criminals 
or unfortunate debtors who were sold in America 
instead of being sent to jail. Others were persons 
who had been kidnapped and carried across the sea 
into servitude. Yet others were men and women 

165 



166 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

who voluntarily bound themselves to work for a 
term of years in payment of their passage to the 
colonies. By far the largest number of the white 
servants in Washington's day belonged to this last- 
mentioned class, who were often called "redemp- 
tioners." Some of these were ambitious, well- 
meaning people, perhaps skilled artisans, who after 
working out their time became good citizens and 
often prospered. A few were even well educated. 
In favor of the convicts, however, little could be 
said. In general they were ignorant and immoral 
and greatly lowered the level of the population in 
the Southern States, the section to which most of 
them were sent. 

Whether they came to America of their own free 
will or not such servants were subjected to stringent 
regulations and were compelled to complete their 
terms of service. If they ran away, they could be 
pursued and brought back by force, and the papers 
of the day were full of advertisements for such 
absconders. Owing to their color and the ease with 
which they found sympathizers among the white 
population, however, the runaways often managed 
to make good their escape. 

To give a complete list of Washington's inden- 



WHITE SERVANTS 167 

tured servants, even if it were possible, would be 
tedious and tiresome. For the most part he bought 
them in order to obtain skilled workmen. Thus in 
1760 we find him writing to a Doctor Ross, of 
Philadelphia, to purchase for him a joiner, a brick- 
layer and a gardener, if any ship with servants was 
in port. As late as 1786 he bought the time of a 
Dutchman named Overdursh, who was a ditcher 
and mower, and of his wife, a spinner, washer and 
milker; also their daughter. The same year he 
"received from on board the Brig Anna, from Ire- 
land, two servant men for whom I agreed yesterday 
— viz — Thomas Ryan, a shoemaker, and Cavan 
Bowen a Tayler Redemptioners for 3 years service 
by Indenture." These cost him twelve pounds each. 
The story of his purchase of servants for his western 
lands is told in anotlier place, as is also that of his 
plan to import Palatines for the same purpose. 

On the day of Lexington and Concord, but before 
the news of that conflict reached Virginia, two of 
his indentured servants ran away and he published 
a lengthy advertisement of them in the Virginia 
Gazette J offering a reward of forty dollars for the 
return of both or twenty dollars for the return of 
either. They were described as follows: 



168 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

"THOMAS SPEARS, a joiner, born in Bristol, 
about 20 years of age, 5 feet 6 inches and a half 
high, slender made. He has light grey or blueish 
colored eyes, a little pock-marked, and freckled, with 
sandy colored hair, cut short; his voice is coarse, 
and somewhat drawling. He took with him a coat, 
waistcoat, and breeches, of light brown duffil, with 
black horn buttons, a light colored cloth waistcoat, 
old leather breeches, check and oznabrig shirts, a 
pair of old ribbed ditto, new oznabrig trowsers, and 
a felt hat, not much the worse for wear. WILLIAM 
WEBSTER, a brick maker, born in Scotland, and 
talks pretty broad. He is about 5 feet six inches 
high and well made, rather turned of 30, with light 
brown hair, and roundish face. . . . They went 
off in a small yawl, with turpentine sides and bot- 
tom, the inside painted with a mixture of tar and 
red lead." 

In the course of his business career Washington 
also employed a considerable number of free white 
men, who likewise were usually skilled workers or 
overseers. He commonly engaged them for the 
term of one year and by written contracts, which 
he drew up himself, a thing he had learned to do 
when a boy by copying legal forms. Many of these 



WHITE SERVANTS 169 

papers still survive and contracts with joiners and 
gardeners jostle inaugural addresses and opinions 
of cabinet meetings. 

As a rule the hired employees received a house, 
an allowance of corn, flour, meat and perhaps other 
articles, the money payment being comparatively 
small. 

Some of the contracts contain peculiar stipula- 
tions. That with a certain overseer provided : "And 
whereas there are a number of whiskey stills very 
contiguous to the said Plantations, and many idle, 
drunken and dissolute People continually resorting 
the same, priding themselves in debauching sober 
and well-inclined Persons the said Edd. Voilett doth 
promise as well for his own sake as his employers 
to avoid them as he ought." 

Probably most readers have heard of the famous 
contract with the gardener Philip Bater, who had 
a weakness for the output of stills such as those 
mentioned above. It was executed in 1787 and, in 
consideration of Eater's agreement "not to be dis- 
guised with liquor except on times hereinafter men- 
tioned," provided that he should be given "four 
dollars at Christmas, with which he may be drunk 
four days and four nights ; two dollars at Easter to 



170 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

effect the same purpose ; two dollars at Whitsuntide 
to be drunk for two days; a dram in the morning, 
and a drink of grog at dinner at noon." 

Washington's most famous white servant was 
Thomas Bishop, who figures in some books as a 
negro. He had been the personal servant of Gen- 
eral Braddock, and tradition says that the dying 
General commended him to Washington. At all 
events Washington took him into his service at ten 
pounds per year and, except for a short interval 
about 1760, Bishop remained one of his retainers 
until death. It was Bishop and John Alton who 
accompanied Washington on his trip to New York 
and Boston in 1756 — that trip in the course of 
which, according to imaginative historians, the 
young officer became enamored of the heiress Mary 
Phillipse. Doubtless the rnen made a brave show 
along the way, for we know that Washington had 
ordered for them "2 complete livery suits for serv- 
ants ; with a spare cloak and all other necessary trim- 
mings for two suits more. I would have you choose 
the livery by our arms, only as the field of arms is 
white, I think the clothes had better not be quite so, 
but nearly like the inclosed. The trimmings and fac- 
ings of scarlet, and a scarlet waist coat. If livery 



WHITE SERVANTS 171 

lace is not quite disused, I should be glad to have 
the cloaks laced. I like that fashion best, and two 
silver laced hats for the above servants." 

When the Revolution came Bishop was too old 
to take the field and was left at home as the man- 
ager of a plantation. He was allowed a house, for 
he had married and was now the father of a daugh- 
ter. He lived to a great age, but on fair days, when 
the Farmer was at home, the old man always made 
it a point to grasp his cane and walk out to the road 
to see his master ride by, to salute him and to pass 
a friendly word. He seems to have thought of leav- 
ing Mount Vernon with his daughter in 1794, for 
the President wrote to Pearce : "Old Bishop must 
be taken care of whether he goes or stays." He died 
the following January, while Washington was away 
in Philadelphia. 

Custis tells an amusing story of Bishop's daughter 
Sally. Following the Revolution two of Washing- 
ton's aides-de-camp, Colonels Smith and Hum- 
phreys, the latter a poet of some pretensions, spent 
considerable time at Mount Vernon arranging the 
General's military papers. One afternoon Smith 
strolled out from the Mansion House for relaxation 
and came upon Sally, then in her teens and old 



172 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

enough to be interesting to a soldier, milking a cow. 
When she started for the house with the pail of 
milk the Colonel gallantly stepped forward and 
asked to be permitted to carry it. But Sally had 
heard from her father dire tales of what befell 
damsels who had anything to do with military men 
and the fact that Smith was a fine-looking young 
fellow in no way lessened her sense of peril. In 
great panic she flung down the pail, splashing the 
contents over the officer, and ran screaming to the 
house. Smith followed, intent upon allaying her 
alarm and ran plump into old Bishop, who at once 
accused him of attempting to philander with the 
girl, turned a deaf ear to all the Colonel's explana- 
tions, and declared that he would bring word of the 
offense to his honor the General, nay more, to Mrs. 
Washington ! 

In great alarm the Colonel betook himself toward 
the Mansion House pondering upon some way of 
getting himself out of the scrape he had fallen into. 
At last he bethought himself of Billy Lee, the mu- 
latto body servant, and these two old soldiers pro- 
ceeded to hold a council of war. Smith said: "It's 
bad enough, Billy, for this story to get to the Gen- 
eral's ears, but to those of the lady will never do; 



WHITE SERVANTS 173 

and then there's Humphreys, he will be out upon 
me in a d — d long poem that will spread my mis- 
fortunes from Dan to Beersheba!" At last it was 
decided that Billy should act as special ambassador 
to Bishop and endeavor to divert him from his pur- 
pose. Meanwhile Bishop had got out his old clothes 
— Cumberland cocked hat and all — of the period of 
the French War, had dressed with great care and, 
taking up his staff, had laid his line of march 
straight to the Mansion House. Billy met him mid- 
way upon the road and much skirmishing ensued, 
Billy taking two lines of attack: first, that Smith 
was a perfect gentleman, and, second, that Bishop 
had no business to have such a devilishly pretty 
daughter. Finally these tactics prevailed, Bishop 
took the right about, and a guinea dropped into the 
ambassador's palm completed the episode. 

In due time Sally lost her dreadful fear of men 
and married the plantation carpenter, Thomas 
Green, with whose shiftless ways, described else- 
where, Washington put up for a long time for the 
sake of "his family." Ultimately Green quitted 
Washington's service and seems to have deserted 
his wife or else died ; at all events she and her family 
were left in distressed circumstances. She wrote a 



174 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

letter to Washington begging assistance and he in- 
structed his manager to aid her to the extent of £20 
but to tell her that if she set up a shop in Alexan- 
dria, as she thought of doing, she must not buy any- 
thing of his negroes. He seems to have allowed her 
a little wood, flour and meat at killing time and in 
1796 instructed Pearce that if she and her family 
were really in distress, as reported, to afford them 
some relief, **but in my opinion it had better be in 
anything than money, for I very strongly suspect 
that all that has, and perhaps all that will be given 
to her in that article. Is applied more in rigging 
herself, than in the purchase of real and useful nec- 
essaries for her family." 

By his will Washington left Sally Green and Ann 
Walker, daughter of John Alton, each one hundred 
dollars in "consideration of the attachment of their 
father [s] to me." 

Alton entered Washington's service even before 
Bishop, accompanying him as a body servant on the 
Braddock campaign and suffering a serious illness. 
He subsequently was promoted to the management 
of a plantation and enjoyed Washington's confi- 
dence and esteem. It was with a sad heart that 
Washington penned in his diary for 1785: "Last 



WHITE SERVANTS 175 

night Jno. Alton an Overseer of mine in the Neck — • 
an old & faithful Servant who has lived with me 
30 odd years died — and this evening the wife of 
Thos. Bishop, another old Servant who had lived 
with me an equal number of years also died." 

The adoption of Mrs. Washington's two youngest 
grandchildren, Nelly Custis and George Washing- 
ton Custis, made necessary the employment of a tu- 
tor. One applicant was Noah Webster, who visited 
Mount Vernon in 1785, but for some reason did not 
engage. A certain William Shaw had charge for 
almost a year and then in 1786 Tobias Lear, a na- 
tive of New Hampshire and a graduate of Harvard, 
was employed. It is supposed that some of the les- 
sons w^ere taught in the small circular building 
in the garden; Washington himself refers to it as 
"the house in the Upper Garden called the School 
house." 

Lear's duties were by no means all pedagogical 
and ultimately he became Washington's private sec- 
retary. In Philadelphia he and his family lived in the 
presidential mansion. Washington had for him "a 
particular friendship," an almost fatherly affection. 
His interest in Lear's little son Lincoln was almost 
as great as he would have bestowed upon his own 



176 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

grandson. Apropos of the recovery of the child 
from a serious illness he wrote in 1793: "It gave 
Mrs. Washington, myself, and all who knew him 
sincere pleasure to hear that our little favourite had 
arrived safe and was in good health at Portsmouth 
— we sincerely wish him a long continuance of the 
latter — that he may be always as charming and 
promising as he now is — that he may live to be a 
comfort and blessing to you — and an ornament to 
his Country. As a token of my affection for him 
I send him a ticket in the lottery that's now draw- 
ing in the Federal City; if it should be his fortune 
to draw the Hotel, it will add to the pleasure I feel 
in giving it." 

Truly a rather singular gift for a child, we would 
think in these days. Let us see how it turned out. 
The next May Washington wrote to Lear, then in 
Europe on business for the Potomac Navigation 
Company, of which he had become president: 
"Often, through the medium of Mr. Langdon, we 
hear of your son Lincoln, and with pleasure, that 
he continues to be the healthy and sprightly child 
he formerly was. He declared if his ticket should 
turn up a prize, he would go and live in the Federal 
City. He did not consider, poor little fellow, that 



WHITE SERVANTS 177 

some of the prizes would hardly build him a baby 
house nor foresee that one of these small tickets 
would be his lot, having drawn no more than ten 
dollars." 

Lear's first wife had died the year before of yel- 
low fever at the President's house in Philadelphia, 
and for his second he took the widow of George A. 
Washington — Fanny — who was a niece of Martha 
Washington, being a daughter of Anna Dandridge 
Bassett and Colonel Burwell Bassett. This alliance 
tended to strengthen the friendly relations between 
Lear and the General. In Washington's last mo- 
ments Lear held his dying hand and later penned a 
noble description of the final scene that reveals a 
man of high and tender sentiments with a true ap- 
preciation of his benefactor's greatness. Washing- 
ton willed him the use of three hundred sixty acres 
east of Hunting Creek during life. When Fanny 
Lear died, Lear married Frances Dandridge Hen- 
ley, another niece of Mrs. Washington. Lear's de- 
scendants still own a quilt made by Martha Wash- 
ington and given to this niece. 

During part at least of Washington's absence in 
the French war his younger brother John Augus- 
tine, described in the General's will as "the intimate 



178 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

friend of my ripened age," had charge of his busi- 
ness affairs and resided at Mount Vernon. The re- 
lations with this brother were unusually close and 
Washington took great interest in John's eldest son 
Bushrod, who studied law and became an associate 
justice of the Federal Supreme Court. To Bushrod 
the General gave his papers, library, the Mansion 
House Farm and other land and a residuary share 
in the estate. 

I am inclined to believe that during 1757-58 John 
Augustine did not have charge, as Mount Vernon 
seems to have been under the oversight of a certain 
Humphrey Knight, who worked the farm on shares. 
He was evidently a good farmer, for in 1758 Will- 
iam Fairfax, who kept a friendly eye upon his ab- 
sent neighbor's affairs, wrote : "You have some of 
the finest Tobacco & Corn I have seen this year." 
The summer was, however, exceedingly dry and the 
crop was good in a relative sense only. Knight tried 
to keep affairs in good running order and the men 
hard at work, reporting "as to ye Carpentrs I have 
minded em all I posably could, and has whipt em 
when I could see a fault." Knight died September 
9, 1758, a few months before Washington's mar- 
riage. 



WHITE SERVANTS 179 

Washington's general manager during the Revo- 
lution was Lund Washington, a distant relative. He 
was a man of energy and ability and retired against 
protests in 1785. Unfortunately not much of the 
correspondence between the two has come down to 
us, as Lund destroyed most of the General's letters. 
Why he did so I do not know, though possibly it 
was because in them Washington commented freely 
about persons and sections. In one that remains, for 
example, written soon after his assumption of com- 
mand at Cambridge, the General speaks disparag- 
ingly of some New England officers and says of the 
troops that they may fight well, but are "dirty fel- 
lows." When the British visited Mount Vernon in 
1781 Lund conciliated them by furnishing them pro- 
visions, thereby drawing down upon himself a re- 
buke from the owner, who said that he would rather 
have had his buildings burned down than to have 
purchased their safety in such a way. Nevertheless 
the General appreciated Lund's services and the two 
always remained on friendly terms. 

Lund was succeeded by Major George Augustine 
Washington, son of the General's brother Charles. 
From his youth George Augustine had attached 
himself to his uncle's service and fought under him 



180 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

in the Revolution, a part of the time on the staff of 
Lafayette. The General had a strong affection for 
him and in 1784 furnished him with money to take 
a trip to the West Indies for his health. Contrary 
to expectations, he improved, married Fanny Bas- 
sett, and for several years resided at Mount Vernon. 
But the disease, consumption, returned and, greatly 
to his uncle's distress, he died in 1792. Washington 
helped to care for the widow until she became the 
wife of Tobias Lear. 

Two other nephews, Robert Lewis and Howell 
Lewis, were in turn for short intervals in charge 
of affairs, but presently the estate was committed to 
the care of an Englishman named Anthony Whit- 
ing, who was already overseer of two of the farms. 
Like his predecessor he was a victim of consump- 
tion and died in June, 1793. Washington showed 
him great kindness, repeatedly urging him not to 
overexert, to make use of wines, tea, coffee and 
other delicacies that had been sent for the use of 
guests. As Whiting was also troubled with rheuma- 
tism, the President dropped affairs of state long 
enough to write him that ''Flannel next the skin [is] 
the best cure for, & preventative of the Rheumatism 
I have ever tried." Yet after Whiting's death the 



WHITE SERVANTS 181 

employer learned .that he had been deceived in the 
man — that he "drank freely — kept bad company at 
my house in Alexandria — and was a very debauched 
person.'* 

William Pearce, who followed Whiting, came 
from the eastern shore of Maryland, where he 
owned an estate called "Hopewell." His salary was 
a hundred guineas a year. A poor speller and gram- 
marian, he was nevertheless practical and one of the 
best of all the managers. He resigned in 1797 on 
account of rheumatism, which he thought would 
prevent him from giving business the attention it 
deserved. Washington parted from him with much 
regret and gave him a "certificate" in which he 
spoke in the most laudatory terms of his "honesty, 
sobriety industry and skill" and stated that his con- 
duct had given "entire satisfaction." They later 
corresponded occasionally and exchanged farm and 
family news in the most friendly way. 

The last manager, James Anderson, was described 
by his employer as "an honest, industrious and ju- 
dicious Scotchman." His salary was one hundred 
forty pounds a year. Though born in a country 
where slaves were unknown, he proved adaptable to 
Virginia conditions and assisted the overseers "in. 



182 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

some chastisements when needful." As his em- 
ployer retired from the presidency soon after he 
took charge he had not the responsibility of some 
who had preceded him, for Washington was unwill- 
ing to be reduced to a mere cipher on his own estate. 
Seeing the great profusion of cheap corn and rye, 
Anderson, who was a good judge of whisky, en- 
gaged the General in a distillery, which stood 
near the grist mill. The returns for 1798 were 
f344.12.7j4, with 755>4 gallons still unsold. 

Washington's letters to his managers are filled 
with exhortations and sapient advice about all man- 
ner of things. He constantly urged them to avoid 
familiarities with the blacks and preached the im- 
portance of "example," for, "be it good or bad," it 
"will be followed by all those who look up to you. — 
Keep every one in their place, & to their duty; re- 
laxation from, or neglect in small matters, lead to 
like attempts in matters of greater magnitude." 

The absent owner was constantly complaining 
that his managers failed to inform him about mat- 
ters concerning which he had inquired. Hardly a 
report reached him that did not fail to explain some- 
thing in which he was interested. This was one 



WHITE SERVAl^TS 183 

of the many disadvantages of farming at long 

range. 

In 1793 Washington described his overseers to 
Pearce, who was just taking charge, in great detail. 
Stuart is competent, sober and industrious, but talk- 
ative and conceited. 'If he stirs early and works 
late ... his talkativeness and vanity may be 
humored." Crow is active and possessed of good 
judgment, but overly fond of "visiting and receiv- 
ing visits." McKoy is a "sickly, slothful and stupid 
fellow." Butler, the gardener, may mean well, but 
"he has no more authority over the Negroes he is 
placed over than an old woman would have." Ulti- 
mately he dismissed Butler on this ground, but as 
the man could find no other job he was forced to 
give him assistance. The owner's opinions of Davy, 
the colored overseer at Muddy Hole Farm, and of 
Thomas Green, the carpenter, are given elsewhere. 

In the same letter he exhorted Pearce to see what 
time the overseers "turn out of a morning— for I 
have strong suspicions that this, with some of them, 
is at a late hour, the consequences of which to the 
Negroes is not difficult to foretell.— All these Over- 
seers as you will perceive by their agreements, which 



184 GEORGE W^^INGTON— FARMER 

I here with send, are on standing wages; and this 
with men who are not actuated by the principles of 
honor or honesty, and not very regardful of their 
characters, leads naturally to endulgences — as their 
profits whatever may be mine, are the same whether 
they are at a horse race or on the farm." 

From the above it will appear that he did not be- 
lieve that the overseers were storing up any large 
treasury of good works. In the Revolution he wrote 
that one overseer and a confederate, "I believe, di- 
vide the profits of my Estate on the York River, 
tolerably between them, for the devil of anything 
do I get." Later he approved the course of George 
A. Washington in depriving an overseer of the priv- 
ilege of killing four shoats, as this gave him an ex- 
cuse when caught killing a pig to say that it was one 
of those to which he was entitled. Even when hon- 
est, the overseers were likely to be careless. They 
often knew little about the stock under their charge 
and in making their weekly reports would take the 
number from old reports instead of actually making 
the count, with the result that many animals could 
die or disappear long before those in charge became 
aware of it. 

Washington's carpenters were mostly slaves, but 




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WHITE SERVANTS 185 

he usually hired a white man to oversee and direct 
them. In 1768, for example, he engaged for this 
purpose a certain Jonathan Palmer, who was to re- 
ceive forty pounds a year, four hundred pounds of 
meat, twenty bushels of corn, a house to live in, a 
garden, and also the right to keep two cows. 

The carpenters were required not only to build 
houses, barns, sheds and other structures, but also 
boats, and had to hew out or whipsaw many of the 
timbers and boards used. 

The carpenter whose name we meet oftenest was 
Thomas Green, who married Sally Bishop. I have 
seen a contract signed by Green in 1786, by which 
he was to receive annually forty-five pounds in Vir- 
ginia currency, five hundredweight of pork, pasture 
for a cow, and two hundred pounds of common 
flour. He also had the right to be absent from the 
plantation half a day in every month. He did not 
use these vacations to good advantage, for he was a 
drunken incompetent and tried Washington's pa- 
tience sorely. Washington frequently threatened to 
dismiss him and as often relented and Green finally, 
in 1794, quit of his own accord, though Washing- 
ton thereafter had to assist his family. 

'The employment of white day labor at Mount 



186 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

Vernon was not extensive. In harvest time some 
extra cradlers were employed, as this was a kind of 
work at which the slaves were not very skilful. Pay- 
ment was at the rate of about a dollar a day or a 
dollar for cutting four acres, which was the amount 
a skilled man could lay down in a day. The men 
were also given three meals a day and a pint of 
spirits each. They slept in the barns, with straw 
and a blanket for a bed. With them worked the 
overseers, cutting, binding and setting up the 
sheaves in stools or shocks. 

Laziness in his employees gave our Farmer a vast 
deal of unhappiness. It was an enemy that he fought 
longer and more persistently than he fought the 
British. In his early career a certain "Young Ste- 
phens," son of the miller, seems to have been his 
greatest trial. "Visited my Plantations," he confides 
to his diary. "Severely reprimanded young Stephens 
for his Indolence, and his father for suffering it." 
"Visited my Quarters & ye Mill according to custom 
found young Stephens absent." "Visited my Plan- 
tations and found to my great surprise Stephens 
constantly at work." "Rid out to my Plantn. and to 
my Carpenters. Found Richard Stephens hard at 
work with an ax — very extraordinary this!" 



WHITE SERVANTS 187 

To what extent the change proved permanent we 
do not know. But even though the reformation was 
absolute, it mattered Httle, for each year produces 
a new crop of lazybones just as it does "lambs" and 
"suckers." 

Enough has been said to show that our Farmer 
was impatient, perhaps even a bit querulous, but 
innumerable incidents prove that he was also gen- 
erous and just. Thus when paper currency depreci- 
ated to a low figure he, of his own volition, wrote to 
Lund Washington that he would not hold him to his 
contract, but would pay his wages by a share in the 
crops, and this at a time when his own debtors were 
discharging their indebtedness in the almost worth- 
less paper. 

If ever a square man lived, Washington was that 
man. He believed in the Golden Rule and he prac- 
tised it — not only in church, but in business. It was 
not for nothing that as a boy he had written as his 
one hundred tenth "Rule of Civility" : "Labor to 
keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celes- 
tial fire called Conscience." 

In looking through his later letters I came upon 
one, dated January 7, 1796, from Pearce stating that 
Pavenport, a miller whom Washington had brought 



188 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

from Pennsylvania, was dead. He had already re- 
ceived six hundred pounds of pork and more wages 
than were due him as advances for the coming year. 
What should be done? asked the manager. "His 
Wife and Children will be in a most Distressed Sit- 
uation." As I examined the papers that followed I 
said to myself: "I will see if I know what his an- 
swer will be." I thought I did, and so it proved. 
Back from Philadelphia came the answer : 

"Altho' she can have no right to the Meat, I 
would have none of it taken from her. — You may 
also let her have middlings from the Mill, — and un- 
til the house may become indispensably necessary 
for the succeeding Miller, let her remain in it. — As 
she went from these parts she can have no friends 
(by these I mean relations) where she is. If there- 
fore she wishes to return back to his, or her own re- 
lations, aid her in doing so." 

Not always were his problems so somber as this. 
Consider, for example, the case of William M. Rob- 
erts, an employee who feared that he was about to 
get the sack. "In your absence to Richmond," writes 
anxious William, November 25, 1784, "My Wife & 
I have had a Most Unhappy falling out Which I 
Shall not Trouble you with the Praticlers No farther 



WHITE SERVANTS 189 

than This. I hapened To Git to Drinking one 
Night as She thought Two Much. & From one Cros 
Question to a nother Matters weare Carred to the 
Langth it has been. Which Mr. Lund Washington 
will Inform you For My part I am Heartily Sorry 
in my Sole My Wife appares to be the Same & I 
am of a pinion that We Shall Live More Happy 
than We have Don for the fewter." 

In his dealings with servants Washington was 
sometimes troubled with questions that worry us 
when we are trying to hire "Mary" or "Bridget." 
Thus when Mrs. Washington's ill health necessi- 
tated his engaging in 1797 a housekeeper he made 
the following minute and anxious inquiries of 
Bushrod Washington at Richmond concerning a cer- 
tain Mrs. Forbes : 

"What countrywoman is she? 

"Whether Widow or Wife? if the latter 

"Where her husband is? 

"What family she has? 

"What age she is? 

"Of what temper? 

"Whether active and spirited in the execution of 
her business? 

"Whether sober and honest? 



190 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

"Whether much knowledge in Cookery, and un- 
derstands ordering and setting out a Table? 

"What her appearance is ? 

"With other matters which may occur to you to 
ask, — and necessary for me to know. 

"Mrs. Forbes will have a warm, decent and com- 
fortable room to herself, to lodge in, and will eat 
of the victuals of our Table, but not set at it, at any 
time with us, be her appearance what it may, for if 
this was once admitted, no line satisfactory to either 
party, perhaps, could be drawn thereafter. — It might 
be well for me to know however whether this was 
admitted at Govr. Brookes or not." 

Considerate and just though he was, his deliber- 
ate judgment of servants after a long and varied 
experience was that they are "necessary plagues 
. . . they baffle all calculation in the accomplish- 
ment of any plan or repairs they are engaged in; 
and require more attention to and looking after than 
can be well conceived." 

Perhaps the soundest philosophy upon this trying 
and much debated servant question is that of Miles 
Standish, who proceeded, however, straightway to 
violate it. 



CHAPTER XII 

BLACK SLAVES 

IT IS ONE of the strange inconsistencies of his- 
tory that one of the foremost champions of Ub- 
erty of all time should himself have been the abso- 
lute owner and master of men, women and children. 
Visitors at Mount Vernon saw many faces there, 
but only a few were white faces, the rest were those 
of black slaves. On each farm stood a village of 
wooden huts, where turbaned mammies crooned 
and piccaninnies gamboled in the sunshine. The 
cooks, the house servants, the coachmen, the stable 
boys, almost all the manual workers were slaves. 
Even the Mansion House grounds, if the master 
was away, were apt to be overrun with black chil- 
dren, for though only the progeny of a few house 
servants were supposed to enter the precincts, the 
others often disregarded the prohibition, to the de- 
struction of the Farmer's flowers and rare shrubs. 

191 



192 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

From his father Washington inherited ten or a 
dozen slaves and, as occasion required or opportu- 
nity offered, he added to the number. By 1760 he 
paid taxes on forty-nine slaves, in 1770 on eighty- 
seven and in 1774 on one hundred thirty-five. Pres- 
ently he found himself overstocked and in 1778 ex- 
pressed a wish to barter for land some "Negroes, 
of whom I every day long more to get clear of."* 
Still later he declared that he had more negroes than 
could be employed to advantage on his estate, but 
was principled against selling any, while hiring them 



* In 1754 he bought a "fellow" for £40.5, another named Jack 
for £52.5 and a woman called Clio for £50. Two years later 
he acquired two negro men and a woman for £86, and from 
Governor Dinwiddie a woman and child for £60. In 1758 he 
got Gregory for £60.9. Mount Vernon brought him eighteen 
more. Mrs. Washington was the owner of a great many 
slaves, which he called the "dower Negroes," and with part of 
the money she brought him he acquired yet others. The year 
of his marriage he bought Will for £50, another fellow for £60, 
Hannah and child for £80 and nine others for £406. In 1762 
he acquired two of Fielding Lewis for £115, seven of Lee Mas- 
sey for £300, also one-handed Charles for £30. Two years 
later he bought two men and a woman of the estate of Francis 
Hobbs for £128.10, the woman being evidently of inferior 
quality, for she cost only £20. Another slave purchased that 
year from Sarah Alexander was more valuable, costing tld. 
Judy and child, obtained of Garvin Corbin, cost £63. Two 
mulattoes, Will and Frank, bought of Mary Lee in 1768, cost 
£61.15 and £50, and Will became famous as a body servant; 
Adam and Frank, bought of the same owner, cost £38. He 
bought five more slaves in 1772. Some writers say that this 
was his last purchase, but it is certain that thereafter he at 
least took a few in payment of debts. 



BLACK SLAVES 193 

out was almost as bad. "What then is to be done? 
Something or I shall be ruined." 

In 1786 he took a census of his slaves on the 
Mount Vernon estate. On the Mansion House Farm 
he had sixty-seven, including Will or Billy Lee, who 
was his "val de Chambre," two waiters, two cooks, 
three drivers and stablers, three seamstresses, two 
house maids, two washers, four spinners, besides 
smiths, a waggoner, carter, stock keeper, knitters 
and carpenters. Two women were "almost past serv- 
ice," one of them being "old and almost blind." A 
man, Schomberg, was "past labour." Lame Peter 
had been taught to knit. Twenty-six were children, 
the youngest being Delia and Sally. At the mill were 
Miller Ben and three coopers. On the whole estate 
there were two hundred sixteen slaves, including 
many dower negroes. 

If our Farmer took any special pains to develop 
the mental and moral nature of "My People," as 
he usually called his slaves, I have found no record 
of it. Nor is there any evidence that their sexual re- 
lations were other than promiscuous — if they so de- 
sired. Marriage had no legal basis among slaves and 
children took the status of their mother. Instances 
occurred in which couples remained together and 



194 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

had an affection for their families, but the reverse 
was not uncommon. This state of affairs goes far 
toward explaining moral lapses among the negroes 
of to-day. 

I have found only one or two lists of the increase 
of the slaves, one being that transmitted by James 
Anderson, manager, in February, 1797, to the effect 
that "there are 3 Negro Children Born, & one dead 
— at River Farm 1 ; born at Mansion house, Lina 1 ; 
at Union Farm 1 born & one dead — It was killed by 
Worms. Medical assistance was called — But the 
mothers are very inattentive to their Young." 

Just why the managers, when they carefully men- 
tioned the arrival of calves, colts, lambs and mules, 
did not also transmit news of the advent of the more 
valuable two-legged live stock, is not apparent. In 
many reports, however, in accounting for the time 
of slaves, occur such entries as: "By Cornelia in 
child bed 6 days." Occasionally the fact and sex of 
the increase is mentioned, but not often. 

Washington was much more likely to take notice 
of deaths than of increases. "Dorcas, daughter of 
Phillis, died, which makes 4 Negroes lost this win- 
ter," he wrote in 1760. He strove to safeguard the 



BLACK SLAVES 195 

health of his slaves and employed a physician by 
the year to attend to them, the payment, during part 
of the time at least, being fifteen pounds per annum. 
In 1760 this physician was a certain James Laurie, 
evidently not a man of exemplary character, for 
Washington wrote, April 9, 1760, "Doctr. Laurie 
came here. I may add Drunk." Another physician 
was a Doctor Brown, another Doctor William Rum- 
ney, and in later years it was Washington's old 
friend Doctor Craik. I have noticed two instances 
of Washington's sending slaves considerable dis- 
tances for medical treatment. One boy, Christopher, 
bitten by a dog, went to a "specialist" at Lebanon, 
Pennsylvania, for treatment to avert madness, and 
another, Tom, had an operation performed on his 
eyes, probably for cataract. 

When at home the Farmer personally helped to 
care for sick slaves. He had a special building 
erected near the Mansion House for use as a hos- 
pital. Once he went to Winchester in the Shenan- 
doah region especially to look after slaves ill with 
smallpox "and found everything in the utmost con- 
fusion, disorder, and backwardness. Got Blankets 
and every other requisite from Winchester, and set- 



196 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

tied things on the best footing I could." As he had 
had smallpox when at Barbadoes, he had no fear of 
contagion. 

Among the entries in his diary are : "Visited my 
Plantations and found two negroes sick . . . 
ordered them to be blooded." "Found that lighten- 
ing had struck my quarters and near 10 Negroes in 
it, some very bad but by letting blood recovered." 
"Found the new negro Cupid ill of a pleurisy at 
Dogue Run Quarter and had him brot home in a 
cart for better care of him. . . . Cupid ex- 
tremely ill all this day and night. When I went to 
bed I thought him within a few hours of breathing 
his last." However, Cupid recovered. 

In his contracts with overseers Washington stipu- 
lated proper care of the slaves. Once he complained 
to his manager that the generality of the overseers 
seem to "view the poor creatures in scarcely any 
other light than they do a draught horse or ox ; neg- 
lecting them as much when they are unable to work ; 
instead of comforting and nursing them when they 
lye on a sick bed." Again he wrote : 

"When I recommended care of and attention to 
my negros in sickness, it w^as that the first stage of, 
and the whole progress through the disorders with 



BLACK SLAVES 197 

which they might be seized (if more than a slight 
indisposition) should be closely watched, and timely 
appHcations and remedies be administered; espe- 
cially in the pleurisies, and all inflammatory disor- 
ders accompanied with pain, when a few day's neg- 
lect, or want of bleeding might render the ailment 
incurable. In such cases sweeten'd teas, broths and 
(according to the nature of the complaint, and the 
doctor's prescription) sometimes a little wine, may 
be necessary to nourish and restore the patient ; and 
these I am perfectly willing to allow, when it is 
requisite." 

Yet again he complains that the overseers "seem 
to consider a Negro much in the same light as they 
do the brute beasts, on the farms, and often times 
treat them as inhumanly." 

His slaves by no means led lives of luxury and in- 
glorious ease. A friendly Polish poet who visited 
Mount Vernon in 1798 was shocked by the poor 
quarters and rough food provided for them. He 
wrote : 

"We entered some negroes' huts — for their habi- 
tations cannot be called houses. They are far more 
miserable than the poorest of the cottages of our 
peasants. The husband and his wife sleep on a mis- 



198 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

erable bed, the children on the floor. A very poor 
chimney, a Httle kitchen furniture amid this misery 
— a tea-kettle and cups. ... A small orchard 
with vegetables was situated close to the hut. Five 
or six hens, each with ten or fifteen chickens, walked 
there. That is the only pleasure allowed to the ne- 
groes : they are not permitted to keep either ducks 
or geese or pigs." 

Yet all the slaves he saw seemed gay and light- 
hearted and on Sundays played at pitching the bar 
with an activity and zest that indicated that they 
managed to keep from being overworked and found 
some enjoyment in life. 

To our Farmer's orderly and energetic soul his 
shiftless lazy blacks were a constant trial. In his 
diary for February, 1760, he records that four of 
his carpenters had only hewed about one hundred 
twenty feet of timber in a day, so he tried the ex- 
periment of sitting down and watching them. They 
at once fell to with such energy and worked so rap- 
idly that he concluded that each one ought to hew 
about one hundred twenty-five feet per day and 
more when the days were longer. 

A later set of carpenters seem to have been equally 



BLACK SLAVES 199 

trifling, for of them he said in 1795: "There is 
not to be found so idle a set of Rascals. — In short, it 
appears to me, that to make even a chicken coop, 
would employ all of them a week." 

"It is observed by the Weekly Report,'* he wrote 
when President, "that the Sowers make only Six 
Shirts a Week, and the last week Caroline (without 
being sick) made only five; — Mrs. Washington says 
their usual task was to make nine with Shoulder 
straps, & good sewing: — tell them therefore from 
me, that what has been done shall be done by fair or 
foul means; & they had better make a choice of the 
first, for their own reputation, & for the sake of 
peace and quietness otherwise they will be sent to 
the several Plantations, & be placed at common la- 
bor under the Overseers thereat. Their work ought 
to be well examined, or it will be most shamefully 
executed, whether little or much of it is done — and 
it is said, the same attention ought to be given to 
Peter (& I suppose to Sarah likewise) or the Stock- 
ings will be knit too small for those for whom they 
are intended; such being the idleness, & deceit of 
those people." 

"What kind of sickness is Betty Davis's?" he de- 



200 GEORGE W^^INGTON— FARMER 

mands on another occasion. "If pretended ailments, 
without apparent causes, or visible effects, will 
screen her from work, I shall get no work at all 
from her; — for a more lazy, deceitful and impudent 
huzzy is not to be found in the United States than 
she is." 

"I observe what you say of Betty Davis &ct.," 
he wrote a little later, "but I never found so much 
difficulty as you seem to apprehend in distinguish- 
ing between real and feigned sickness; — or when a 
person is much afflicted with pain. — Nobody can be 
very sick without having a fever, nor will a fever 
or any other disorder continue long upon any one 
without reducing them. — Pain also, if it be such as 
to yield entirely to its force, week after week, will 
appear by its effects; but my people (many of them) 
will lay up a month, at the end of which no visible 
change in their countenance, nor the loss of an oz of 
flesh, is discoverable ; and their allowance of provi- 
sion is going on as if nothing ailed them." 

He not only deemed his negroes lazy, but he had 
also a low opinion of their honesty. Alexandria was 
full of low shopkeepers who would buy stolen goods 
from either blacks or whites, and Washington de- 
clared that not more than two or three of his slaves 




Spinning House — Last Building to the Right 



^•^^ 




The Butler's House and Magnolia Set out by Washington 
the Year of his Death 



BLACK SLAVES 201 

would refrain from filching anything upon which 
they could lay their hands. 

He found that he dared not leave his wine un- 
locked, because the servants would steal two glasses 
to every one consumed by visitors and then allege 
that the visitors had drunk it all. 

He even suspected the slaves of taking a toll from 
the clover and timothy seed given them to sow and 
adopted the practice of having the seed mixed with 
sand, as that rendered it unsalable and also had the 
advantage of getting the seed sown more evenly. 

Corn houses and meat houses had to be kept 
locked, apples picked early, and sheep and pigs 
watched carefully or the slaves took full advantage 
of the opportunity. Nor can we at this distant day 
blame them very much or wax so indignant as did 
their master over their thieveries. They were held 
to involuntary servitude and if now and then they 
got the better of their owner and managed to enjoy 
a few stolen luxuries they merely did a little toward 
evening the score. But it was poor training for 
future freedom. 

The black picture which Washington draws of 
slavery — from the master's standpoint — is exceed- 
ingly interesting and significant. The character he 



202 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

gives the slaves Is commended to the attention of 
those persons who continually bemoan the fact that 
freedom and education have ruined the negroes. 

One of the famous "Rules of Civility," which the 
boy Washington so carefully copied, set forth that 
persons of high degree ought to treat their inferiors 
"with affibility & Courtesie, without Arrogancy." 
There is abundant evidence that when he came to 
manhood he was reasonably considerate of his 
slaves, and yet he was a Master and ruled them in 
martinet fashion. His advice to a manager was to 
keep the blacks at a proper distance, "for they will 
grow upon familiarity in proportion as you will sink 
in authority." The English farmer Parkinson re- 
cords that the first time he walked with General 
Washington among his negroes he was amazed at 
the rough manner in which he spoke to them. This 
does not mean that Washington cursed his negroes 
as the mate of a Mississippi River boat does his 
roustabouts, but I suspect that those who have heard 
such a mate can form an idea of the tone employed 
by our Farmer that so shocked Parkinson. Military 
officers still employ It toward their men. 

Corporal punishment was resorted to on occasion, 
but not to extremes. The Master writes regarding 



BLACK SLAVES 203 

a runaway : "Let Abram get his deserts when taken, 
by way of example ; but do not trust to Crow to give 
it to him;— for I have reason to believe he is swayed 
more by passion than by judgment in all his correc- 
tions." Tradition says that on one occasion he found 
an overseer brutally beating one of the blacks and, 
indignant at the sight, sprang from his horse and, 
whip in hand, strode up to the overseer, who was so 
affrighted that he backed away crying loudly : "Re- 
member your character, General, remember your 
character!" The General paused, reprimanded the 
overseer for cruelty and rode off. 

Among his slaves were some that were too unruly 
to be managed by ordinary means. In the early sev- 
enties he had such a one on a plantation in York 
County, Will Shag by name, who was a persistent 
runaway, and who whipped the overseer and was 
obstreperous generally. Another slave committed so 
serious an offense that he was tried under state law 
and was executed. When a bondman became partic- 
ularly fractious he was threatened with being sent to 
the West Indies, a place held in as much dread as 
was "down the river" in later years. In 1766 Wash- 
ington sent such a fellow off and to the captain of 
the ship that carried the slave away he wrote ; 



204 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

"With this letter comes a negro (Tom) which I 
beg the favor of you to sell in any of the islands 
you may go to, for whatever he will fetch, and 
bring me in return for him 

"One hhd of best molasses 

"One ditto of best rum 

"One barrel of lymes, if good and cheap 

"One pot of tamarinds, containing about 10 lbs. 

"Two small ditto of mixed sweetmeats, about 5 
lbs. each. And the residue, much or little, in good 
old spirits. That this fellow is both a rogue and a 
runaway (tho he was by no means remarkable for 
the former, and never practiced the latter till of 
late) I shall not pretend to deny. But that he is ex- 
ceedingly healthy, strong, and good at the hoe, the 
whole neighborhood can testify, and particularly 
Mr. Johnson and his son, who have both had him 
under them as foreman of the gang; which gives me 
reason to hope that he may with your good manage- 
ment sell well, if kept clean and trim'd up a little 
when offered for sale." 

Another "misbehaving fellow" named Waggoner 
Jack was sent off in 1791 and was sold for "one pipe 
and Quarter Cask" of wine. Somewhat later (1793) 
Matilda's Ben became addicted to evil courses and 



BLACK SLAVES 205 

among other things committed an assault and bat- 
tery on Sambo, for which he received corporal pun- 
ishment duly approved by our Farmer, whose ear- 
nest desire it was "that quarrels be stopped." Evi- 
dently the remedy was insufficient, for not long after 
the absent owner wrote: 

' "I am very sorry that so likely a fellow as Matil- 
da's Ben should addict himself to such courses as he 
is pursuing. If he should be guilty of any atrocious 
crime that would affect his life, he might be given 
up to the civil authority for trial; but for such of- 
fenses as most of his color are guilty of, you had 
better try further correction, accompanied by ad- 
monition and advice. The two latter sometimes suc- 
ceed where the first has failed. He, his father and 
mother (who I dare say are his receivers) may be 
told in explicit language, that if a stop is not put to 
his rogueries and other villainies, by fair means and 
shortly, that I will ship him off (as I did Waggoner 
Jack) for the West Indies, where he will have no 
opportunity of playing such pranks as he is at pres- 
ent engaged in." 

A few of the negroes occupied positions of some 
trust and responsibility. One named Davy was for 
many years manager of Muddy Hole Farm, and 



206 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

Washington thought that he carried on his work as 
well as did the white overseers and more quietly 
than some, though rather negligent of live stock. 
Each year at killing time he was allowed two or 
three hundredweight of pork as well as other privi- 
leges not accorded to the ordinary slave. Still his 
master did not entirely trust him, for in 1795 we 
find that Washington suspected Davy of having 
stolen some lambs that had been reported as "lost." 
The most famous of the Mount Vernon negroes 
was William Lee, better known as Billy, whose pur- 
chase from Mary Lee has already been noticed. 
Billy was Washington's valet and huntsman and 
served with him throughout the Revolution as a 
body servant, rode with him at reviews and was 
painted by Savage in the well-known group of the 
President and his family. Naturally Billy put on 
airs and presumed a good deal upon his position. On 
one occasion at Monmouth the General and his staff 
were reconnoitering the British, and Billy and fel- 
low valets gathered on an adjoining hill beneath a 
sycamore tree whence Billy, telescope in hand, sur- 
veyed the enemy with much importance and inter- 
est. Washington, with a smile, called the attention 
of his aides to the spectacle. About the same time 



BLACK SLAVES 207 

the British, noticing the group of horsemen and un- 
able to distinguish the color of the riders, paid their 
respects to Billy and his followers in the shape of a 
solid shot, which went crashing through the top of 
the tree, whereupon there w^as a rapid recession of 
coat tails toward the rear. 

Billy was a good and faithful servant and his 
master appreciated the fact. In 1784 we find Wash- 
ington writing to his Philadelphia agent: "The 
mullatto fellow, William, who has been with me all 
the war, is attached (married he says) to one of his 
own color, a free woman, who during the war, was 
also of my family. She has been in an infirm con- 
dition for some time, and I had conceived that the 
connexion between them had ceased ; but I am mis- 
taken it seems; they are both applying to get her 
here, and tho' I never wished to see her more, I can 
not refuse his request (if it can be complied with on 
reasonable terms) as he has served me faithfully 
for many years. After premising this much, I have^ 
to beg the favor of you to procure her a passage to 
Alexandria." 

Next year while Billy and his master were en- 
gaged in surveying a piece of ground he fell and 
broke his knee pan, with the result that he was crip- 



208 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

pled ever after. When Washington started to New 
York in 1789 to be inaugurated Billy insisted upon 
accompanying him, but gave out on the way and 
was left at Philadelphia. A little later, by the Presi- 
dent's direction, Lear wrote to return Billy to Mount 
Vernon, "for he cannot be of any service here, and 
perhaps will require a person to attend upon him 
constantly . . . but if he is still anxious to 
come on here the President would gratify him, 
altho' he will be troublesome — He has been an old 
and faithful Servant, this is enough for the Presi- 
dent to gratify him in every reasonable wish." 

When Billy was at Mount Vernon he worked as 
a shoemaker. He kept careful note of visitors to 
the place and if one arrived who had served in the 
Revolution he invariably received a summons to 
visit the old negro and as invariably complied. Then 
would ensue a talk of war experiences which both 
would enjoy, for between those who had experi- 
enced the cold at Valley Forge and the warmth of 
Monmouth there were ties that reached beyond the 
narrow confines of caste and color. And upon de- 
parture the visitor would leave a coin in Billy's not 
unwilling palm. 

As later noted in detail, Washington made special 



BLACK SLAVES 209 

provision for Billy in his will, and for years the old 
negro lived upon his annuity. He was much addicted 
to drink and now and then, alas, had attacks in 
which he saw things that were not. On such occa- 
sions it was customary to send for another mulatto 
named Westford, who would relieve him by letting 
a little blood. There came a day when Westford ar- 
rived and proceeded to perform his customary office, 
but the blood refused to flow. Billy was dead. 

Washington's kindness to Billy was more or less 
paralleled by his treatment of other servants. Even 
when President he would write letters for his slaves 
to their wives and "Tel Bosos" and would inclose 
them with his own letters to Mount Vernon. He ap- 
preciated the fact that slaves were capable of human 
feelings like other men and in 1787, when trying to 
purchase a mason, he instructed his agent not to buy 
if by so doing he would "hurt the man's feelings" 
by breaking family ties. Even when dying, noting 
black Cristopher by his bed, he directed him to sit 
down and rest. It was a little thing, but kindness is 
largely made up of little things. 

The course taken by him in training a personal 
servant is Indicated by some passages from his cor- 
respondence. Writing from the Capital to Pearce, 



210 GEORGE WA^INGTON— FARMER 

December, 1795, regarding a young negro, Wash- 
ington says : 

"If Cyrus continues to give evidence of such qual- 
ities as would fit him for a waiting man, encourage 
him to persevere in them; and if they should appear 
to be sincere and permanent, I will receive him in 
that character when I retire from public life if not 
sooner. — To be sober, attentive to his duty, honest, 
obliging and cleanly, are the qualifications necessary 
to fit him for my purposes. — If he possess these, 
or can acquire them — he might become useful to me, 
at the same time that he would exalt, and benefit 
himself." 

"I would have you again stir up the pride of Cy- 
rus," he wrote the next May, "that he may be 
the fitter for my purposes against I come home; 
sometime before which (that is as soon as I shall be 
able to fix on time) I will direct him to be taken into 
the house, and clothes to be made for him. — In the 
meanwhile, get him a strong horn comb and direct 
him to keep his head well combed, that the hair, or 
wool may grow long." 

Once when President word reached his ears that 
he was being criticized for not furnishing his slaves 
with sufficient food. He hurriedly directed that the 
amount should be increased and added : "I will not 



BLACK SLAVES 211 

have my feelings hurt with complaints of this sort, 
nor lye under the imputation of starving my ne- 
gros, and thereby driving them to the necessity of 
thieving to supply the deficiency. To prevent waste 
or embezzlement is the only inducement to allow- 
ancing them at all — for if, instead of a peck they 
could eat a bushel of meal a week fairly, and re- 
quired it, I would not withold or begrudge it them/* 
There is good reason to believe that Washington 
was respected and even beloved by many of his 
"People." Colonel Humphreys, who was long at 
Mount Vernon arranging the General's papers, 
wrote descriptive of the return at the close of the 
Revolution : 

"When that foul stain of manhood, slavery, flowed. 
Through Afric's sons transmitted in the blood; 
Hereditary slaves his kindness shar'd, 
For manumission by degrees prepar'd: 
Return'd from war, I saw them round him press 
And all their speechless glee by artless signs ex- 
press." 

On the whole we must conclude that the lot of the 
Mount Vernon slaves was a reasonably happy one. 
The regulations to which they had to conform were 



212 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

rigorous. Their Master strove to keep them at work 
and to prevent them from "night walking," that is 
running about at night visiting. Their work was 
rough, and even the women were expected to labor 
in the fields plowing, grubbing and hauling manure 
as if they were men. But they had rations of corn 
meal, salt pork and salt fish, whisky and rum at 
Christmas, chickens and vegetables raised by them- 
selves and now and then a toothsome pig sequestered 
from the Master's herd. When the annual races were 
held at Alexandria they were permitted to go out 
into the world and gaze and gabble to their heart's 
content. And, not least of all, an inscrutable Provi- 
dence had vouchsafed to Ham one great compensa- 
tion that whatever his fortune or station he should 
usually be cheerful. The negro has not that "sad 
lucidity of mind" that curses his white cousin and 
leads to general mental wretchedness and suicide. 

Some of the Mount Vernon slaves were of course 
more favored than were others. The domestic and 
personal servants lived lives of culture and inglori- 
ous ease compared with those of the field hands. 
They formed the aristocracy of colored Mount Ver- 
non society and gave themselves airs accordingly. 

Nominally our Farmer's slaves were probably all 



BLACK SLAVES 213 

Christians, though I have found no mention in his 
papers of their spiritual state. But tradition says 
that some of them at Dogue Run at least were Vou- 
doo or "conjuring" negroes. 

Washington owned slaves and lived his life un- 
der the institution of slavery, but he loved it not. He 
was too honest and keen-minded not to realize that 
the institution did not square with the principles of 
human liberty for which he had fought, and yet the 
problem of slavery was so vast and complicated that 
he was puzzled how to deal with it. But as early as 
1786 he wrote to John F. Mercer, of Virginia : "I 
never mean, unless some particular circumstances 
should compel me to it, to possess another slave by 
purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some 
plan adopted by which slavery in this country may 
be abolished by law." The running away of his 
colored cook a decade later subjected him to such 
trials that he wrote that he would probably have to 
break his resolution. He did, in fact, carry on con- 
siderable correspondence to that end and seems to 
have taken one man on trial, but I have found no 
evidence that he discovered a negro that suited him. 

In 1794, in explaining to Tobias Lear his reasons 
for desiring to sell some of his western lands, he 



214 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

said: ^'Besides these I have another motive which 
makes me earnestly wish for these things — it is in- 
deed more powerful than all the rest — namely to 
liberate a certain species of property which I possess 
very repugnantly to my own feelings ; but which im- 
perious necessity compels, and until I can substitute 
some other expedient, by which expenses, not in my 
power to avoid (however well I may be disposed to 
do it) can be defrayed." 

Later in the same year he wrote to General Alex- 
ander Spotswood: *'With respect to the other spe- 
cies of property, concerning which you ask my opin- 
ion, I shall frankly declare to you that I do not like 
even to think, much less to talk of it. — However, as 
you have put the question, I shall, in a few words, 
give my ideas about it. — Were it not then, that I 
am principled agt. selling negroes, as you would 
cattle at a market, I would not in twelve months 
from this date, be possessed of one as a slave. — I 
shall be happily mistaken, if they are not found to 
be a very troublesome species of property ere many 
years pass over our heads." 

"I wish from my soul that the Legislature of the 
State could see the policy of a gradual abolition of 



BLACK SLAVES 215 

slavery/' he wrote to Lawrence Lewis three years 
later. "It might prevent much future mischief." 

His ideas on the subject were in accord with those 
of many other great Southerners of his day such 
as Madison and Jefferson. These men reaUzed the 
inconsistency of slavery in a repubHc dedicated to 
the proposition that all men are created equal, and 
vaguely they foresaw the irrepressible conflict that 
was to divide their country and was to be fought 
out on a hundred bloody battle-fields. They did not 
attempt to defend slavery as other than a temporary 
institution to be eliminated whenever means and 
methods could be found to do it. Not until the cot- 
ton gin had made slavery more profitable and radical 
abolitionism arose in the North did Southerners of 
prominence begin to champion slavery as praise- 
worthy and permanent. 

And yet, though Washington in later life deplored 
slavery, he was human and illogical enough to dis- 
like losing his negroes and pursued runaways with 
energy. In October, 1760, he spent seven shillings 
in advertising for an absconder, and the next year 
paid a minister named Green four pounds for taking 
up a runaway. In 1766 he advertised rewards for 



216 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

the capture of "Negro Tom," evidently the man he 
later sold in the West Indies. The return of Henry 
in 1771 cost him £1.16. Several slaves were carried 
away by the British during the Revolution and seem 
never to have been recovered, though the treaty of 
peace provided for the return of such slaves, and 
Washington made inquiries concerning them. In 
1796, apropos of a girl who had absconded to New 
England, he excused his desire to recapture her on 
the ground that as long as slavery was in existence 
it was hardly fair to allow some to escape and to 
hold others. 

A rather peculiar situation arose in 1791 with re- 
gard to some of his "People." His attorney general, 
Randolph, had taken some slaves to Philadelphia, 
and the blacks took advantage of the fact that under 
Pennsylvania law they could not be forced to leave 
the state against their will. Fearing that some of 
his own servants might do likewise, Washington 
directed Lear to get the slaves back to Mount Ver- 
non and to accomplish it "under pretext that may 
deceive both them and the Public," w^hich goes to 
show that even George Washington had some of the 
guile of the serpent. 

During this period he was loath to bring the fact 



BLACK SLAVES 217 

that he was a slaveholder too prominently before the 
public, for he realized the prejudice already existing 
against the institution in the North. When one of 
his men absconded in 1795 he gave instructions not 
to let his name appear in any advertisement of the 
runaway, at least not north of Virginia. 

His final judgment on slavery is expressed in his 
will. "Upon the decease of my wife it is my will 
and desire," he wrote, "that all the slaves which I 
hold in my own right shall receive their freedom — 
To emancipate them during her life, would tho ear- 
nestly wished by me, be attended with such insuper- 
able difficulties, on account of their intermixture by 
marriages with the Dower negroes as to excite the 
most painful sensations, — if not disagreeable conse- 
quences from the latter, while both descriptions are 
in the occupancy of the same proprietor, it not being 
in my power under the tenure by which the dower 
Negroes are held to manumit them." 

The number of his own slaves at the time of his 
death was one hundred twenty- four. Of dower ne- 
groes there were one hundred fifty-three, and be- 
sides he had forty leased from a Mrs. French. 

He expressly forbade the sale of any slave or his 
transportation out of Virginia, and made provision 



218 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

for the care of the aged, the young and the infirm. 
He gave immediate freedom to his mulatto man, 
calling himself William Lee, or if he should prefer 
it, being physically incapacitated, he might remain in 
slavery. In either case he was to have an annuity 
of thirty dollars and the "victuals and cloaths he has 
been accustomed to receive." "This I give him as a 
testimony of my sense of his attachment to me and 
for his faithful services during the revolutionary 
War." 

As a matter of fact, Mrs. Washington preferred 
to free her own and the General's negroes as soon as 
possible and it was accordingly done before her 
death, which occurred in 1802. 

One of the servants thus freed, by name Gary, 
lived to the alleged age of one hundred fourteen 
years and finally died in Washington City. He was 
a personage of considerable importance among the 
colored population of the Capital, and on Fourth of 
July and other parades would always appear in an 
old military coat, cocked hat and huge cockade pre- 
sented by his Master. His funeral was largely at- 
tended even by white persons. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE farmer's wife 

MARTHA DANDRIDGE'S first husband 
was a man much older than herself and her 
second was almost a year younger. Before she em- 
barked upon her second matrimonial venture she 
had been the mother of four children, and having 
lost two of these, her husband, her father and 
mother, she had known, though only twenty-seven, 
most of the vital experiences that life can give. I^er- 
haps it was well, for thereby she was better fitted to 
be the mate of a man sober and sedate in disposition 
and created by Nature to bear heavy burdens of re- 
sponsibility. 

In view of the important places her husband filled, 
it is astonishing how little we really know of her. 
Washington occasionally refers to her in his letters 
and diaries, but usually in an impersonal way that 
gives us little insight into her character or activities. 
She purposely destroyed almost all the correspond- 

219 



220 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

ence that passed between her and her husband and 
very little else remains that she wrote. From the 
few letters that do survive it is apparent that her 
education was slender, though no more so than that 
of most women of her day even in the upper class. 
She had a fondness for phonetic spelling, and her 
verbs and subjects often indulged in family wran- 
gles. She seems to have been conscious of her de- 
ficiencies in this direction or at least to have disliked 
writing, for not infrequently the General acted as 
her amanuensis. But she was well trained in social 
and domestic accomplishments, could dance and play 
on the spinet — in short, was brought up a "gentle- 
woman." That she must in youth have possessed 
charm of person and manners is indicated by her 
subjugation of Daniel Parke Custis, a man of the 
world and of much greater fortune than herself, and 
by her later conquest of Washington, for, though it 
be admitted in the latter case that George may not 
have objected to her fortune, we can not escape the 
conclusion that he truly loved her. 

In fact, the match seems to have been ideally suc- 
cessful in every respect except one. The contracting 
parties remained reasonably devoted to each other 
until the end and though tradition says that Martha 



THE FARMER'S WIFE 221 

would sometimes read George a curtain lecture after 
they had retired from company, there remains no 
record of any serious disagreement. Though not 
brilliant nor possessed of a profound mind, she was 
a woman of much good sense with an understanding 
heart. Nor did she lack firmness or public spirit. 
Edmund Pendleton relates that when on his way to 
the Continental Congress in 1774 he stopped at 
Mount Vernon, "She talked like a Spartan mother 
to her son on going to battle. T hope you will all 
stand firm — I know George will,' she said." 

The poorest artisan in Boston with nothing to lose 
but his life did not embrace the patriot cause with 
any greater eagerness than did these Washingtons 
with their broad acres and thousands of pounds on 
bond. 

There is every reason to believe that Martha 
Washington was helpful to her husband in many 
ways. At home she was a good housewife and when 
Washington was in public life she played her part 
well. No brilliant sallies of wit spoken by her on 
any occasion have come down to us, but we know 
that at Valley Forge she worked day and night knit- 
ting socks, patching garments and making shirts for 
the loyal band of winter patriots who stood by their 



222 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

leader and their cause in the darkest hour of the 
Revolution. 

A Morristown lady who paid her a call in the 
little stone house that still stands beside the Schuyl- 
kill relates that "as she was said to be so grand a 
lady, we thought we must put on our best bibs and 
bands. So we dressed ourselves in our most elegant 
ruffles and silks, and were introduced to her lady- 
ship. And don't you think we found her knitting 
with a specked apron on! She received us very gra- 
ciously, and easily, but after the compliments were 
over, she resumed her knitting." 

But the marriage was a failure in that there were 
no children. No doubt both wanted them, for Wash- 
ington was fond of young people and many anec- 
dotes are handed down of his interest in little tots. 
Some one has remarked that he was deprived of 
offspring in order that he might become the Father 
of His Country. 

Toward those near and dear to her Martha Wash- 
ington was almost foolishly affectionate. In one of 
her letters she tells of a visit "in Westmoreland 
whare I spent a weak very agreabley. I carred my 
little patt with me and left Jackey at home for a 
trial to see how well I coud stay without him though 



THE FARMER'S WIFE 223 

we ware gon but won fortnight I was quite impa- 
tiant to get home. If I at aney time heard the doggs 
barke or a noise out, I thought thair was a person 
sent for me. I often fancied he was sick or some 
accident had happened to him so that I think it is 
imposspossible for me to leave him as long as Mr. 
Washington muststay when he comes down." 

Any parent who has been absent from home under 
similar circumstances and who has imagined the in- 
finite variety of dreadful things that might befall a 
loved child will sympathize with the mother*s heart 
— in spite of the poor spelling ! 

Patty Custis was an amiable and beautiful girl 
who when she grew up came to be called "the dark 
lady." But she was delicate in health. Some writers 
have said that she had consumption, but as her step- 
father repeatedly called it "Fits," I think it is cer- 
tain that it was .some form^of epilepsy. Her parents 
did everything possible to restore her, but in vain. 
Once they took her to Bath, now Berkeley Springs, 
for several weeks and the expenses of that journey 
we find all duly set down by Colonel Washington in 
the proper place. As Paul Leicester Ford remarks, 
some of the remedies tried savored of quackery. In 
the diary for February 16, 1770, we learn that 



224 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

"Joshua Evans who came here last Night put an iron 
Ring upon Patey and went away after Breakfast." 
Perhaps Evans failed to make the ring after the 
old medieval rule from three nails or screws that 
had been taken from a disinterred coffin. At any 
rate the ring did poor Patty little good and a year 
later "Mr. Jno. Johnson who has a nostrum for 
Fits came here in the afternoon." In the spring of 
1773 the dark lady died. 

Her death added considerably to Washington's 
possessions, but there is every evidence that he gave 
no thought to that aspect of the matter. "Her deli- 
cate health, or perhaps her fond affection for the 
only father she had ever known, so endeared her to 
the 'general', that he knelt at her dying bed, and 
with a passionate burst of tears prayed aloud that 
her life might be spared, unconscious that even then 
her spirit had departed." The next day he wrote 
to his brother-in-law: "It is an easier matter to 
conceive than describe the distress of this Family: 
especially, that of the unhappy Parent of our Dear 
Patey Custis, when I inform you that yesterday re- 
moved the Sweet Innocent Girl [who] Entered into 
a tnore Happy & peaceful abode than any she has 
met with in the afflicted Path she hitherto has trod." 



THE FARMER'S WIFE 225 

Before this John Parke Custis, or "J^^ky," had 
given his stepfather considerable anxiety. Jacky's 
mind turned chiefly from study to dogs, horses and 
guns and, in an effort to "make him fit for more 
useful purposes than horse races," Washington put 
him under the tutorship of an Anglican clergyman 
named Jonathan Boucher, who endeavored to in- 
struct some of the other gilded Virginia youths of 
his day. But Latin and Greek were far less inter- 
esting to the boy than the pretty eyes of Eleanor 
Calvert and the two entered into a clandestine en- 
gagement. In all respects save one the match was 
eminently satisfactory, for the Calvert family, being 
descended from Lord Baltimore, was as good as 
any in America, and Miss Nelly's amiable qualities, 
wrote Washington, had endeared her to her pros- 
pective relations, but both were very young. Jack 
being about seventeen, and the girl still younger. 
While consenting to the match, therefore, Washing- 
ton insisted that its consummation should be post- 
poned for two years and packed the boy off to 
King's College, now Columbia. But Martha Wash- 
ington was a fond and doting mother and, as 
Patty's death occurred almost immediately. Jack's 
absence in distant New York was more than she 



226 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

could bear. He was, therefore, allowed to return 
home in three months instead of two years, and in 
February, 1774, was wedded to the girl of his 
choice. Mrs. Washington felt the loss of her 
daughter too keenly to attend, but sent this message 
by her husband : 

"My dear Nelly. — God took from me a Daugh- 
ter when June Roses were blooming — He has now 
given me another Daughter about her Age when 
Winter winds are blowing, to warm my Heart 
again. I am as Happy as One so Afflicted and so 
Blest can be. Pray receive my Benediction and a 
wish that you may long live the Loving Wife of 
my happy Son, and a Loving Daughter of 
"Your affectionate Mother, 

"M. Washington." 

The marriage, it may be added here, sobered John 
Custis. He and his bride established themselves at 
Abingdon on the Potomac, not far from Mount 
Vernon, and with their little ones were often visit- 
ors, especially when the General was away to the 
war and Mrs. Washington was alone. Toward the 
close of the war Jack himself entered the army, rose 
to the rank of colonel and died of fever contracted 
in the siege of Yorktown. Thus again was the 



THE FARMER'S WIFE 227 

mother's heart made sorrowful, nor did the General 
himself accept the loss unmoved. He at once 
adopted the two youngest children, Eleanor and 
George Washington Parke, and brought them tip 
in his own family. 

Eleanor Custis, or "Nelly," as she was affection- 
ately called, grew up a joyous, beautiful cultured 
girl, who won the hearts of all who saw her. The 
Polish poet, Julian Niemcewicz, who visited Mount 
Vernon in 1798, wrote of her as "the divine Miss 
Custis. ... She was one of those celestial be- 
ings so rarely produced by nature, sometimes 
dreamt of by poets and painters, which one cannot 
see without a feeling of ecstacy." As already stated, 
she married the General's nephew, Lawrence Lewis. 
In September, 1799, Washington told the pair that 
they might build a house on Grey's Heights on the 
Dogue Run Farm and rent the farm, "by all odds 
the best and most productive I possess," promising 
that on his death the place should go to them. Death 
came before the house was built, but later the pair 
erected on the Heights "Woodlawn," one of the 
most beautiful and pretentious places in Fairfax 

County. 

George Washington Parke Custis grew up much 



22^ GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

such a boy as his father was. He took few matters 
seriously and neglected the educational opportuni- 
ties thrown in his way. Washington said of him 
that "from his infancy I have discovered an almost 
unconquerable disposition to indolence in every- 
thing that did not tend to his amusements.^* But 
he loved the boy, nevertheless, and late in life Custis 
confessed, "we have seen him shed tears of parental 
solicitude over the manifold errors and follies of 
our unworthy youth." The boy had a good heart, 
however, and if he was the source of worry to the 
great man during the great man's life, he at least 
did what he could to keep the great man's memory 
green. He wrote a book of recollections full of 
filial affection and Latin phrases and painted in- 
numerable war pictures in which Washington was 
always in the foreground on a white horse "with 
the British streaking it." Washington bequeathed 
to him a square in the City of Washington and 
twelve hundred acres on Four Mile Run in the 
vicinity of Alexandria. Upon land near by inher- 
ited from his father Custis built the famous Arling- 
ton mansion, almost ruining himself financially in 
doing so. Upon his death the estate fell to his 



THE FARMER'S WIFE 229 

daughter, Mrs. Robert E. Lee, and it is now our 
greatest national cemetery. 

Mrs. Washington not only managed the Mount 
Vernon household, but she looked after the spinning 
of yarn, the weaving of cloth and the making of 
clothing for the family and for the great horde of 
slaves. At times, particularly during the Revolu- 
tion and the non-importation days that preceded it, 
she had as many as sixteen spinning-wheels in oper- 
ation at once. The work was done in a special spin- 
ning house, which was well equipped with looms, 
wheels, reels, flaxbrakes and other machinery. Most 
of the raw material, such as wool and flax and 
sometimes even cotton, was produced upon the 
place and never left it until made up into the fin- 
ished product. 

In 1768 the white man and five negro girls em- 
ployed in the work produced 815^4 yards of linen, 
365H yards of woolen cloth, 144 yards of hnsey 
and 40 yards of cotton cloth. With his usual pams 
Washington made a comparative statement of the 
cost of this cloth produced at home and what it 
would have cost him if it had been purchased in 
England, and came to the conclusion that only 



230 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

£23.19.11 would be left to defray the expense of 
spinning, hire of the six persons engaged, "cloath- 
ing, victualling, wheels, &c." Still the work was 
kept going. 

A great variety of fabrics were produced: 
"striped woolen, wool plaided, cotton striped, linen, 
wool-birdseye, cotton filled with wool, linsey, M's 
and O's, cotton Indian dimity, cotton jump stripe, 
linen filled with tow, cotton striped with silk, Roman 
M., janes twilled, huccabac, broadcloth, counter- 
pain, birdseye diaper, Kirsey wool, barragon, fus- 
tian, bed-ticking, herring-box, and shalloon." 

In non-importation days Mrs. Washington even 
made the cloth for two of her own gowns, using 
cotton striped with silk, the latter being obtained 
from the ravellings of brown silk stockings and 
crimson damask chair covers. 

The housewife believed in good cheer and an 
abundance of it, and the larders at Mount Vernon 
were kept well filled. Once the General protested 
to Lund Washington because so many hogs had 
been killed, whereupon the manager replied that 
when he put up the meat he had expected that Mrs. 
Washington would have been at home and that he 
knew there would be need for it because her "char- 



,. i I i i ^ i < I .-, - 




^ 






^V^ 4^ 



SginfiH 












^ ^\ 



.V^ -5 



&.^1m' 







THE FARMER'S WIFE 231 

liable disposition is in the same proportion as her 
meat house." 

She had a swarm of relatives by blood and mar- 
riage and they visited her long and often. The 
Burwells, the Bassetts, the Dandridges and all the 
rest came so frequently that hardly a week passed 
that at least one of them did not sleep beneath the 
hospitable roof. Even her stepmother paid her 
many visits and, what is more, was strongly urged 
by the General to make the place her permanent 
home. When Mrs. Washington was at home dur- 
ing the Revolution her son and her daughter-in-law- 
spent most of their time there. After the Revolu- 
tion her two youngest grandchildren resided at 
Mount Vernon, and the two older ones, Elizabeth 
and Martha, were often there, as was their mother, 
who married as her second husband Doctor Stuart, 
a man whom Washington highly esteemed. 

It would be foolish to deny that Mrs. Washington 
did not take pleasure in the honors heaped upon her 
husband or that she did not enjoy the consideration 
that accrued to her as First Lady of the Land. Yet 
public life at times palled upon her and she often 
spoke of the years of the presidency as her "lost 
days." New York and Philadelphia, she said, were 



232 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

"not home, only a sojourning. The General and I 
feel like children just released from school or from 
a hard taskmaster. . . . How many dear friends 
I have left behind! They fill my memory with 
sweet thoughts. Shall I ever see them again ? Not 
likely unless they come to me, for the twilight is 
gathering around our lives. I am again fairly set- 
tled down to the pleasant duties of an old-fashioned 
Virginia-housekeeper, steady as a clock, busy as a 
bee, and cheerful as a cricket." 

That she did not overdraw her account of her 
industry is borne out by a Mrs. Carrington, who, 
with her husband, one of the General's old officers, 
visited Mount Vernon about this time. She wrote : 

"Let us repair to the Old Lady's room, which is 
precisely in the style of our good old Aunt's — that 
is to say, nicely fixed for all sorts of work — On one 
side sits the chambermaid, with her knitting — on the 
other, a little colored pet learning to sew, an old 
decent woman, with her table and shears, cutting out 
the negroes' winter clothes, while the good old lady 
directs them all, incessantly knitting herself and 
pointing out to me several pair of nice colored stock- 
ings and gloves she had just finished, and presenting 
me. with a pair half done, which she begs I will finish 



THE FARMER'S WIFE 233 

and wear for her. Her netting too is a great source 
of amusement and is so neatly done that all the 
family are proud of trimming their dresses with it." 

This domestic life was dear to the heart of our 
Farmer's wife, yet the home-coming did not fail to 
awaken some melancholy memories. To Mrs. 
George Fairfax in England she wrote, or rather 
her husband wrote for her: "The changes which 
have taken place in this country since you left it 
(and it is pretty much the case in all other parts of 
this State) are, in one word, total. In Alexandria, 
I do not believe there lives at this day a single family 
with whom you had the smallest acquaintance. In 
our neighborhood Colo. Mason, Colo. McCarty and 
wife, Mr. Chickester, Mr. Lund Washington and 
all the Wageners, have left the stage of human life; 
and our visitors on the Maryland side are gone and 
going likewise." 

How many people have had like thoughts ! One 
of the many sad things about being the "last leaf 
upon the tree" is having to watch the other leaves 
shrivel and drop off and to be left at last in utter 
loneliness. 

Like her husband, Mrs. Washington was an early 
riser, and it was a habit she seems to have kept up 



234 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

until the end. She rose with the sun and after 
breakfast invariably retired to her room for an hour 
of prayer and reading the Scriptures. Her devo- 
tions over she proceeded with the ordinary duties of 
the day. 

She seems to have been somewhat fond of cere- 
mony and to have had a considerable sense of per- 
sonal dignity. A daughter of Augustine Washing- 
ton, who when twelve years of age spent several 
weeks at Mount Vernon, related when an old woman 
that every morning precisely at eleven o'clock the 
mistress of the mansion expected her company to 
assemble in the drawing-room, where she greeted 
them with much formality and kept them an hour 
on their good behavior. When the clock struck 
twelve she would rise and ascend to her chamber, 
returning thence precisely at one, followed by a 
black servant carrying an immense bowl of punch, 
from which the guests were expected to partake be- 
fore dinner. Some of the younger girls became 
curious to discover why her **Ladyship" retired so 
invariably to her room, so they slipped out from 
where she was entertaining their mothers, crept up- 
stairs and hid under her bed. Presently Lady Wash- 



THE FARMER'S WIFE 235 

ington entered and took a seat before a large table. 
A man-servant then brought a large empty bowl, 
also lemons, sugar, spices and rum, with which she 
proceeded to prepare the punch. The young people 
under the bed thereupon fell to giggling until finally 
she became aware of their presence. Much offended, 
or at least pretending to be, she ordered them from 
the room. They retired with such precipitancy that 
one of them fell upon the stairway and broke her 
arm. 

Another story is to the effect that one morning 
Nelly Custis, Miss Dandridge and some other girls 
who were visiting Nelly came down to breakfast 
dressed dishabille and with their hair done up in 
curl papers. Mrs. Washington did not rebuke them 
and the meal proceeded normally until the announce- 
ment was made that some French officers of rank 
and young Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, who was 
interested in Miss Custis, had driven up outside, 
whereupon the foolish virgins sprang up to leave 
the room in order to make more conventional toilets. 
But Mrs. Washington forbade their doing so, de- 
claring that what was good enough for General 
Washington was good enough for any guest of his. 



236 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

She spoiled George Washington Custis as she had 
his father, but was more severe with Eleanor or 
Nelly. Washington bought the girl a fine imported 
harpsichord, which cost a thousand dollars and 
which is still to be seen at Mount Vernon, and the 
grandmother made Nelly practise upon it four or 
five hours a day. "The poor girl," relates her 
brother, "would play and cry, and cry and play, for 
long hours, under the immediate eye of her grand- 
mother." For no shirking was allowed. 

The truth would seem to be that Lady Washing- 
ton was more severe with the young — always ex- 
cepting Jacky and George — than was her husband. 
He would often watch their games with evident 
enjoyment and would encourage them to continue 
their amusements and not to regard him. He was 
the confidant of their hopes and fears and even amid 
tremendous cares of state found time to give advice 
about their love affairs. For he was a very human 
man, after all, by no means the marble statue sculp- 
tured by some historians. 

Yet no doubt Mrs. Washington's severity pro- 
ceeded from a sense of duty and the fitness of things 
rather than from any harshness of heart. The little 
old lady who wrote : "Kiss Marie. I send her two 



THE FARMER'S WIFE 237 

handkerchiefs to wipe her nose," could not have 
been so very terrible ! 

She was beloved by her servants and when she 
left Mount Vernon for New York in 1789 young 
Robert Lewis reported that "numbers of these poor 
wretches seemed most affected, my aunt equally so." 
At Alexandria she stopped at Doctor Stuart's, the 
home of two of her grandchildren, and next morn- 
ing there was another affecting scene, such as Lewis 
never again wished to witness — "the family in tears 
— ^the children a-bawling — & everything in the most 
lamentable situation." 

Although she was not the paragon that some 
writers have pictured, she was a splendid home- 
loving American woman, brave in heart and helpful 
to her husband, neither a drone nor a drudge — in the 
true Scriptural sense a worthy woman who sought 
wool and flax and worked willingly with her hands. 
As such her price was far beyond rubies. 

As has been remarked before, no brilliant sayings 
from her lips have been transmitted to posterity. 
But I suspect that the shivering soldiers on the 
bleak hillsides at Valley Forge found more comfort 
in the warm socks she knitted than they could have 
in the hon mots of a Madame de Stael or in the 



238 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

grace of a Josephine otq that her homely interest 
in their welfare tied their hearts closer to their 
Leader and their Country. 

It is not merely because she was the wife of the 
Hero of the Revolution and the first President of 
the Republic that she is the most revered of all 
American women. 



CHAPTER XIV 
A farmer's amusements 

No one would ever think of characterizing 
George Washington as frivolous minded, but 
from youth to old age he was a believer in the adage 
that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy — a 
saying that many an overworked farmer of our own 
day would do well to take to heart. 

Like most Virginians he was decidedly a social 
being and loved to be in the company of his kind. 
This trait was noticeable in his youth and during 
his early military career, nor did it disappear after 
he married and settled down at Mount Vernon. 
Until the end he and Mrs. Washington kept open 
house, and what a galaxy of company they had! 
Scarcely a day passed without some guest crossing 
their hospitable threshold, nor did such visitors 
come merely to leave their cards or to pay fash- 
ionable five-minute calls. They invariably stayed 
to dinner and most generally for the night; very 

239 



240 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

often for days or weeks at a time. After the Revo- 
lution the number of guests increased to such an 
extent that Mount Vernon became "little better than 
a well-resorted inn." 

Artists came to paint the great man's picture ; the 
sculptor Houdon to take the great man's bust, ar- 
riving from Alexandria, by the way, after the fam- 
ily had gone to bed; the Marquis de Lafayette to 
visit his old friend; Mrs. Macaulay Graham to ob- 
tain material for her history ; Noah Webster to con- 
sider whether he would become the tutor of young 
Custis; Mr. John Fitch, November 4, 1785, "to pro- 
pose a draft & Model of a machine for promoting 
Navigation by means of a Steam" ; Charles Thom- 
son, secretary of the Continental Congress, to notify 
the General of his election to the presidency; a host 
of others, some out of friendship, others from mere 
curiosity or a desire for free lodging. 

The visit of Lafayette was the last he made to 
this country while the man with whose fame his 
name is inseparably linked remained alive. He 
visited Mount Vernon in August, 1784, and again 
three months later. When the time for a final adieu 
came Washington accompanied him to Annapolis 
and saw him on the road to Baltimore. The gener- 



A FARMER'S AMUSEMENTS 241 

ous young benefactor of America was very dear to 
Washington, and the parting affected him exceed- 
ingly. Soon after he wrote to the departed friend 
a letter in which he showed his heart in a way that 
was rare with him. "In the moment of our separa- 
tion," said he, "upon the road as I travelled, and 
every hour since, I have felt all the love, respect, 
and attachment for you with which length of years, 
close connextion, and your merits have inspired me. 
I have often asked myself, as our carriages sepa- 
rated, whether that was the last sight I ever should 
have of you." 

It was a true foreboding. Often in times that 
followed Washington was to receive tidings of his 
friend's triumphs and perilous adventures amid the 
bloody turmoil of the French Revolution, was to 
entertain his son at Mount Vernon when the father 
lay in the dark dungeons of Olmiitz, but was never 
again to look into his face. Years later the younger 
man, revisiting the grateful Republic he had helped 
to found, was to turn aside from the acclaiming 
plaudits of admiring multitudes and stand pensively 
beside the Tomb of his Leader and reflect upon the 
years in which they had stood gloriously shoulder 
to shoulder in defense of a noble cause. 



242 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

Even when Washington was at the seat of gov- 
ernment many persons stopped at Mount Vernon 
and were entertained by the manager. Several 
times the absent owner sent wine and other luxuries 
for the use of such guests. When he was at home 
friends, relatives, diplomats, delegations of Indians 
to visit the Great White Father swarmed thither in 
shoals. In 1797 young Lafayette and his tutor, Mon- 
sieur Frestel, whom Washington thought a very sen- 
sible man, made the place, by invitation, their home 
for several months. In the summer of that year 
Washington wrote to his old secretary, Tobias Lear : 
"I am alone at present, and shall be glad to see you 
this evening. Unless some one pops in unexpectedly 
— Mrs. Washington and myself will do what I be- 
lieve has not been done within the last twenty Years 
by us, — that is to set down to dinner by ourselves." 

Washington was the soul of hospitality. He en- 
joyed having people in his house and eating at his 
board, but there is evidence that toward the last he 
grew somewhat weary of the stream of strangers. 
But neither then nor at any other time in his life 
did he show his impatience to a visitor or turn any 
man from his door. His patience was sorely tried 
at times. For example, we find in his diary under 



A FARMER^S AMUSEMENTS 243 

date of September 7, 1785: "At Night, a Man of 
the name of Purdie, came to offer himself to me as 
a Housekeeper or Household Steward — ^he had some 
testimonials respecting his character — but being in- 
toxicated, and in other respects appearing in an un- 
favorable light I informed him that he would not 
answer my purpose, but that he might stay all 
night." 

No matter how many visitors came the Farmer 
proceeded about his business as usual, particularly in 
the morning, devoting dinner time and certain hours 
of the afternoon and evening to those who were so- 
journing with him. He was obliged, in self-defense, 
to adopt some such course. He wrote : "My man- 
ner of living is plain, and I do not mean to be put 
out by it. A glass of wine and a bit of mutton are 
always ready, and such as will be content to partake 
of them are always welcome. Those who expect 
more will be disappointed." 

After his retirement from the presidency he in- 
duced his nephew Lawrence Lewis to come to Mount 
Vernon and take over some of the duties of enter- 
taining guests, particularly in the evening, as Wash- 
ington had reached an age when he was averse to 
staying up late. Lewis not only performed the task 



244 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

satisfactorily, but found incidental diversion that 
led to matrimony. 

Every visitor records that the Farmer was a kind 
and considerate host. Elkanah Watson relates that 
one bitter winter night at Mount Vernon, having a 
severe cold that caused him to cough incessantly, he 
heard the door of his chamber open gently and there 
stood the General with a candle in one hand and a 
bowl of hot tea in another. Doubtless George and 
Martha had heard the coughing and in family coun- 
cil had decided that their guest must have attention. 

Washington was a Cavalier, not a Puritan, and 
had none of the old New England prejudice against 
the theater. In fact, it was one of his fondest pleas- 
ures from youth to old age. In his Barbadoes jour- 
nal he records being "treated with a play ticket by 
Mr. Carter to see the Tragedy of George Barnwell 
acted." In 1752 he attended a performance at Fred- 
ericksburg and thereafter, whenever occasion of- 
fered, which during his earlier years was not often, 
he took advantage of it. He even expressed a desire 
to act himself. After his resignation and marriage 
opportunities were more frequent and in his cash 
memorandum books are many entries of expendi- 
tures for tickets to performances at Alexandria and 



A FARMER'S AMUSEMENTS 245 

elsewhere. Thus on September 20, 1768, in his 
daily record of Where & how my time is Spent 
he writes that he "& Mrs. Washington & ye two 
children were up to Alexandria to see the Inconstant 
or way to win him acted." Next day he ''Stayd in 
Town all day & saw the Tragedy of Douglas playd." 
Such performances were probably given by stroll- 
ing players who had few accessories in the way of 
scenery to assist them in creating their illusions. 

In September, 1771, when at Annapolis to attend 
the races, he went to plays four times in five days, 
the fifth day being Sunday. Two years later, being 
in New York City, he saw Hamlet and Cross Pur- 
poses. 

On many occasions both in this period of his life 
and later he went to sleight of hand performances, 
wax works, puppet shows, animal shows, "to hear 
the Armonica," concerts and other entertainments. 
The "association" resolutions of frugality and 
self-denial by the Continental Congress put an end 
temporarily to plays in the colonies outside the Brit- 
ish lines and put Washington into a greater play, 
"not, as he once wished, as a performer, but as a 
character." There were amateur performances at 
Valley Forge, but they aroused .the hostility of the 



246 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

puritanical, and Cong^ss forbade them. Washing- 
ton seems, however, to have disregarded the inter- 
diction after Yorktown. 

He had few opportunities to gratify his fondness 
for performances in the period of 1784-89, but dur- 
ing his presidency, while residing in New York and 
Philadelphia, he was a regular attendant. He gave 
frequent theater parties, sending tickets to his 
friends. Word that he would attend a play always 
insured a "full house," and upon his entrance to his 
box the orchestra would play Hail Columbia and 
Washington's March amid great enthusiasm. 

The Federal Gazette described a performance of 
The Maid of the Mill, which he attended in 1792, as 
follows : 

"When Mr. Hodgkinson as Lord Ainsworth ex- 
hibited nobleness of mind in his generosity to the 
humble miller and his daughter, Patty; when he 
found her blessed with all the qualities that capti- 
vate and endear life, and knew she was capable of 
adorning a higher sphere; when he had interviews 
with her upon the subject in which was painted the 
amiableness of an honorable passion; and after his 
connection, when he bestowed his benefactions on 
the relatives, etc., of the old miller, the great and 



A FARMER'S AMUSEMENTS 247 

good Washington manifested his approbation of this 
interesting part of the opera by the tribute of a 
tear." 

Another amusement that both the Farmer and his 
wife enjoyed greatly was dancing. In his youth he 
attended balls and "routs" whenever possible and 
when fighting French and Indians on the frontier 
he felt as one of his main deprivations his inability 
to attend the "Assemblies." After his marriage he 
and his wife went often to balls in Alexandria, at- 
tired no doubt in all the bravery of imported English 
clothes. He describes a ball of 1760 in these terms : 

"Went to a ball at Alexandria, where Musick and 
dancing was the chief entertainment, however, in a 
convenient room detached for the purpose abounded 
great plenty of bread and butter, some biscuits, with 
tea and coffee, which the drinkers of could not dis- 
tinguish from hot water sweet' ned — Be it remem- 
bered that pocket handkerchiefs served the purposes 
of Table cloths & Napkins and that no apologies 
were made for either. I shall therefore distinguish 
this ball by the stile and title of the Bread & Butter 
Ball." 

A certain Mr. Christian conducted a dancing 
school which met at the homes of the patrons, and 



248 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

the Custis children, John Parke and Martha, were 
members, as were Elizabeth French of Rose Hill, 
Milly Posey and others of the neighborhood young 
people. In 1770 the class met four times at Mount 
Vernon and we can not doubt that occasionally the 
host danced with some of the young misses and en- 
joyed it. 

An established institution was the election ball, 
which took place on the night following the choice 
of the delegate to the Burgesses. Washington often 
contributed to the expenses of these balls, particu- 
larly when he was himself elected. No doubt they 
were noisy, hilarious and perhaps now and then a 
bit rough. 

Much has been written of the dances by which 
Washington and his officers and their ladies helped 
to while away the tedium of long winters during the 
Revolution, but the story of these has been often told 
and besides lies outside the limits of this book, as 
does the dancing at New York and Philadelphia 
during his presidency. 

There is much conflicting evidence regarding 
Washington's later dancing exploits. Some writers 
say that he never tripped the light fantastic after the 



A FARMER'S AMUSEMENTS 249 

Revolution and that one of his last participations 
was at the Fredericksburg ball after the capture of 
Cornwallis when he "went down some dozen couple 
in the contra dance." It is certain, however, that 
long afterward he would at least walk through one 
or two dances, even though he did not actually take 
the steps. One good lady who knew him well asserts 
that he often danced with Nelly Custis, and he seems 
to have danced in 1796 when he was sixty- four. But 
to the invitation to the Alexandria assembly early in 
1799 he replied: 

"Mrs. Washington and myself have been honored 
with your polite invitation to the assemblies of Alex- 
andria this winter, and thank you for this mark of 
your attention. But, alas ! our dancing days are no 
more. We wish, however, all those who have a relish 
for so agreeable and innocent an amusement all the 
pleasure the season will afford them." 

Nor was he puritanical in respect to cards. From 
his account books we find that he ordered them by 
the dozen packs, and his diaries contain such entries 
as "At home all day over cards, it snowing." To 
increase the interest he not infrequently played for 
money, though rarely for a large amount. "Loo" 



250 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

and whist seem to have been the games played, but 
not "bridge" or draw poker, which were then un- 
known. 

From entries in his cash memorandum books it is 
evident that he loved a quiet game rather frequently. 
Thus in his memorandum for 1772 I find the entry 
for September five: "To Cash won at cards" £1.5. 
Four days later he writes : "To Cash won at Cards 
at Mrs. Calverts" ten shillings. But on September 
17th he lost £1.5; on September 30th, £2, and on 
October 5th, six shillings. Two days later his luck 
changed and he won £2.5, while on the seventh he 
won £12.8. This was the most serious game that I 
have found a record of, and the cards must either 
have run well for him or else he had unskilful op- 
ponents. The following March, when attending the 
Burgesses at Williamsburg, he got into a game, 
probably at Mrs. Campbell's tavern, where he took 
his meals, and dropped £7.10. 

In one of his account books I find two pages de- 
voted to striking a balance between what he won 
and what he lost from January 7, 1772, to January 
1, 1775. In that time he won £72.2.6 and lost 
£78.5.9. Hence we find the entry: "By balance 
against Play from Jany. 1772 to this date . . . 



A FARMER'S AMUSEMENTS 251 

6. 3. 3." But he must have had a lot of fun at a 
cost of that six pounds three shillings and three 
pence ! 

It should be remarked here that gaming was then 
differently regarded in Virginia from what it is now. 
Many even of the Episcopal clergymen played cards 
for money and still kept fast hold upon their belief 
that they would go to Heaven. 

The same may also be said of lotteries, in which 
Washington now and then took a flier. Many of the 
churches of that day, even in New England, were 
built partly or wholly with money raised in that way. 
January 5, 1773, Washington states that he has re- 
ceived sixty tickets in the Delaware lottery from his 
friend Lord Stirling and that he has "put 12 of the 
above Sixty into the Hands of the Revd. Mr. Ma- 
gowan to sell." And "the Revd." sold them too ! 

In his journal of the trip to Barbadoes taken with 
his brother Lawrence we find that on his way home 
he attended "a Great Main of cks [cocks] fought in 
Yorktown between Gloucester & York for 5 pistoles 
each battle & 10 ye. odd." Occasionally he seems to 
have witnessed other mains, but I have found no 
evidence that he made the practice in any sense a 
habit. 



252 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

As a counterweight to his interest in so brutal a 
sport I must state that he was exceedingly fond of 
afternoon teas and of the social enjoyments con- 
nected with tea drinking. Tea was regularly served 
at his army headquarters and in summer afternoons 
on the Mount Vernon veranda. 

There is abundant evidence that he also enjoyed 
horse racing. In September, 1768, he mentions go- 
ing "to a Purse race at Accotinck," a hamlet a few 
miles below Mount Vernon where a race track was 
maintained. In 1772 he attended the Annapolis races, 
being a guest of the Governor of Maryland, and he 
repeated the trip in 1773. In the following May he 
went to a race and barbecue at Johnson's Ferry. 
George Washington Custis tells us that the Farmer 
kept blooded horses and that his colt "Magnolia" 
once ran for a purse, presumably losing, as if the 
event had been otherwise we should probably have 
been informed of the fact. In 1786 Washington 
went to Alexandria "to see the Jockey Club purse 
run for," and I have noticed a few other references 
to races, but I conclude that he went less often than 
some writers would have us believe. 

Washington was decidedly an outdoor man. Be- 
ing six feet two inches tall, and slender rather than 



A FARMER'S AMUSEMENTS 253 

heavily made, he was well fitted for athletic sports. 
Tradition says that he once threw a stone across the 
Rappahannock at a spot where no other man could 
do it, and that he could outjump any one in Virginia. 
He also excelled in the game of putting the bar, as 
a story related by the artist Peale bears witness. 

Of outdoor sports he seems to have enjoyed hunt- 
ing most. He probably had many unrecorded ex- 
periences with deer and turkeys when a surveyor 
and when in command upon the western border, but 
his main hunting adventure after big game took 
place on his trip to the Ohio in 1770. Though the 
party was on the move most of the time and was 
looking for rich land rather than for wild animals, 
they nevertheless took some hunts. 

On October twenty-second, in descending the 
stretch of the Ohio near the mouth of Little Beaver 
Creek and above the Mingo Town, they saw many 
wild geese and several kinds of duck and "killed five 
wild turkeys." Three days later they "saw innumer- 
able quantities of turkeys, and many deer watering 
and browsing on the shore side, some of which we 
killed." 

He does not say whether they shot this game from 
the canoe or not, but probably on sighting the game 



254 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

they would put to shore and then one or more would 
steal up on the quarry. Their success was probably 
increased by the fact that they had two Indians with 
them. 

Few people are aware of the fact that what is now 
West Virginia and Ohio then contained many buf- 
faloes. Below the mouth of the Great Hockhocking 
the voyagers came upon a camp of Indians, the chief 
of which, an old friend who had accompanied him 
to warn out the French in 1753, gave Washington 
"a quarter of very fine buffalo." A creek near the 
camp, according to the Indians, was an especial re- 
sort for these great beasts. 

Fourteen miles up the Great Kanawha the trav- 
elers took a day off and "went a hunting ; killed five 
buffaloes and wounded some others, three deer, &c. 
This country abounds in buffaloes and wild game of 
all kinds; as also in all kinds of wild fowls, there 
being in the bottoms a great many small grassy 
ponds, or lakes, which are full of swans, geese, and 
ducks of different kinds." 

How many of the buffaloes fell to his gun Wash- 
ington does not record, but it is safe to assume that he 
had at least some shots at them. And beyond ques- 
tion he helped to devour the delicious buffalo humps, 



A FARMER'S AMUSEMENTS 255 

these being, with the flesh of the bighorn sheep, the 
ne plus ultra of American big game deHcacies. 

The region in which these events took place was 
also notable for its big trees. Near the mouth of the 
Kanawha they "met with a sycamore about sixty 
yards from the river of a most extraordinary size, 
it measuring, three feet from the ground, forty-five 
feet round [almost fifteen feet through], lacking 
two inches ; and not fifty yards from it was another, 
thirty-one feet round." 

When at home, Washington now and then took 
a gun and went out after ducks, "hairs," wild tur- 
keys and other game, and occasionally he records 
fair bags of mallards, teal, bald faces and "blew 
wings," one of the best being that of February 18, 
1768, when he "went a ducking between breakfast 
and dinner & killed 2 mallards & 5 bald faces." It 
is doubtful whether he was at all an expert shot. In 
fact, he much preferred chasing the fox with dogs 
to hunting with a gun. 

Fox hunting in the Virginia of that day was a 
widely followed sport. It was brought over from 
England and perhaps its greatest devotee was old 
Lord Fairfax, with whom Washington hunted when 
still in his teens. Fairfax, whose seat was at Green- 



256 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

way Court in the Shenandoah Valley, was so pas- 
sionately fond of it that if foxes were scarce near 
his home he would go to a locality where they were 
plentiful, would establish himself at an inn and 
would keep open house and welcome every person of 
good character and respectable appearance who 
cared to join him. 

The following are some typical entries from 
Washington's Where & how my time is Spent: 
"Jany. 1st. (1768) Fox huntg. in my own Neck 
with Mr. Robt. Alexander and Mr. Colville — catchd 
nothing — Captn. Posey with us." There were many 
similar failures and no successes in the next six 
weeks, but on February twelfth he records joyfully, 
"Catchd two foxes," and on the thirteenth "catch 2 
more foxes." March 2, 1768, "Hunting again, & 
catchd a fox with a bobd Tail & cut Ears, after 7 
hours chase in wch. most of the dogs were worsted." 
March twenty-ninth, "Fox Hunting with Jacky Cus- 
tis & Ld. [Lund] Washington — Catchd a fox after 
3 hrs. chase." November twenty-second, "Went a 
fox huntg. with Lord Fairfax & Colo. Fairfax & 
my Br. Catchd 2 Foxes." For two weeks there- 
after they hunted almost every day with varying 



A FARMER'S AMUSEMENTS 257 

success. September 30, 1769, he records: ''catchd a 
Rakoon.'* 

On January 27, 1770, the dogs ran a deer out of 
the Neck and some of them did not get home till 
next day. The finding of a deer was no uncommon 
experience, but on no occasion does the chase seem 
to have been successful, as, when hard pressed, the 
fugitive would take to the water where the dogs 
could not follow. January 4, 1772, the hunters 
"found both a Bear and a Fox but got neither." 

Bear and deer were still fairly plentiful in the 
region, and the fact serves to indicate that the coun- 
try was not yet thickly settled, nor is it to this day. 

In November, 1771, Washington and Jack Cus- 
tis went to Colonel Mason's at Gunston Hall, a few 
miles below Mount Vernon, to engage in a grand 
deer drive in which many men and dogs took part. 
Mason had an estate of ten thousand acres which 
was favorably located for such a purpose, being 
nearly surrounded by water, with peninsulas on 
which the game could be cornered and forced to take 
to the river. On the first day they killed two deer, 
but on the second they killed nothing. No doubt they 
had a hilarious time of it, dogs baying, horsemen 



258 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

dashing here and there snouting at the top of their 
voices, and with plenty of fat venison and other 
good cheer at the Hall that night. 

Washington's most remarkable hunting experi- 
ence occurred on the twenty-third of January, 1770, 
when he records : ''Went a hunting after breakfast 
& found a Fox at Muddy hole & killed her (it be- 
ing a Bitch) after a chase of better than two hours 
& after treeing her twice the last of which times she 
fell dead out of the Tree after being therein sevl. 
minutes apparently well." Lest he may be accused 
of nature faking, it should be explained that the 
tree was a leaning tree. Occasionally the foxes also 
took refuge in hollow trees, up which they could 
climb. 

The day usually ended by all the hunters riding 
to Mount Vernon, Belvoir, Gunston Hall, or some 
other mansion for a bountiful dinner. Mighty then 
were the gastronomic feats performed, and over the 
Madeira the incidents of the day were discussed as 
Nimrods in all ages are wont to do. 

Being so much interested in fox hunting, our 
Farmer proceeded, with his usual painstaking care, 
to build up a pack of hounds. The year 1768 was 
probably the period of his greatest interest in the 



A FARMER'S AMUSEMENTS 259 

subject and his diary is full of accounts of the ani- 
mals. Hounds were now, in fact, his hobby, suc- 
ceeding in interest his horses. He did his best to 
breed according to scientific principles, but several 
entries show that the dogs themselves were inclined 
blissfully to ignore the laws of eugenics as applied 
to hounds. 

Among his dogs in this period were "Mopsey," 
"Taster," "Tipler," "Cloe," "Lady," "Forester" and 
"Captain." August 6, 1768, we learn that "Lady" 
has four puppies, which are to be called "Vulcan," 
"Searcher," "Rover," and "Sweetlips." 

Like all dog owners he had other troubles with 
his pets. Once we find him anointing all the hounds 
that had the mange "with Hogs Lard & Brimstone." 
Again his pack is menaced by a suspected mad dog, 
which he shoots. 

The Revolution broke rudely in upon the Farmer's 
sports, but upon his return to Mount Vernon he soon 
took up the old life. Knowing his bent, Lafayette 
sent him a pack of French hounds, two dogs and 
three bitches, and Washington took much interest 
in them. According to George Washington Custis 
they were enormous brutes, better built for grap- 
pling stags or boars than chasing foxes, and so fierce 



260 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

that a huntsman had td^reside at their meals. Their 
kennel stood a hundred yards south of the old fam- 
ily vault, and Washington visited them every morn- 
ing and evening. According to Custis, it was the 
Farmer's desire to have them so evenly matched and 
trained that if one leading dog should lose the scent, 
another would be at hand to recover it and thus in 
full cry you might cover the pack with a blanket. 

The biggest of the French hounds, "Vulcan," was 
so vast that he was often ridden by Master Custis 
and he seems to have been a rather privileged char- 
acter. Once when company was expected to dinner 
Mrs. Washington ordered that a lordly ham should 
be cooked and served. At dinner she noticed that 
the ham was not in its place and inquiry developed 
that "Vulcan" had raided the kitchen and made off 
with the meat. Thereupon, of course, the mistress 
scolded and equally, of course, the master smiled 
and gleefully told the news to the guests. 

Billy Lee, the colored valet who had followed the 
General through the Revolution, usually acted as 
huntsman and, mounted on "Chinkling" or some 
other good steed, with a French horn at his back, 
strove hard to keep the pack in sight, no easy task 



A FARMER'S AMUSEMENTS 261 

among the rough timber-covered hills of Fairfax 
County. 

On a hunting day the Farmer breakfasted by can- 
dle-light, generally upon corn cakes and milk, and at 
daybreak, with his guests, Billy and the hounds, 
sallied forth to find a fox. Washington always rode 
a good horse and sometimes wore a blue coat, scar- 
let w^aistcoat, buckskin breeches, top boots and vel- 
vet cap and carried a whip with a long tTiong. When 
a fox was started none rode more gallantly or 
cheered more joyously than did he and as a rule he 
was in at the death, for, as Jefferson asserts, he was 
"the best horseman of his age, and the most magnifi- 
cent figure that could be seen on horseback." 

The fox that was generally hunted was the gray 
fox, which was indigenous to the country. After the 
Revolution the red fox began to be seen occasionally. 
They are supposed to have come from the Eastern 
Shore, and to have crossed Chesapeake Bay on the 
ice in the hard winter of 1779-80. Custis tells of a 
famous black fox that would go ten or twenty miles 
before the hounds and return to the starting-point 
ready for another run next day. After many unsuc- 
cessful chases Billy recommended that the black rey- 



262 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

nard be let alone, sa^g he was near akin to an- 
other sable and wily character. Thereafter the 
huntsman was always careful to throw off the 
hounds when he suspected that they were on the 
trail of the black fox. This story may or may not 
be true; all that I can say is that I have found no 
confirmation of it in Washington's own writings. 

Neither have I found there any confirmation of 
the story that Mrs. Washington and other ladies 
often rode out to see the hunts. Washington had 
avenues cut through some of his woods to facilitate 
the sport and possibly to make the riding easier for 
the ladies. Upon the whole, however, I incline to the 
opinion that generally at least Martha stayed at 
home visiting with lady friends, attending to domes- 
tic concerns and superintending the preparation of 
delectable dishes for the hungry hunters. I very 
much doubt whether she would have enjoyed seeing 
a fox killed. 

The French hounds were, at least at first, rather 
indifferent hunters. "Went out after Breakfast with 
my hounds from France, & two which were lent me, 
yesterday, by Mr. Mason," says the Farmer the day 
of the first trial; "found a Fox which was run toler- 
ably well by two of the Frh. Bitches & one of Ma- 



A FARMER'S AMUSEMENTS 263 

son's Dogs— the other French dogs shewed but little 
disposition to follow— and with the second Dog of 
Mason's got upon another Fox which was followed 
slow and indifferently by some & not at all by the 
rest until the sent became so cold it cd. not be fol- 
lowed at all." 

Two days later the dogs failed again and the next 
time they ran two foxes and caught neither, but their 
master thought they performed better than hitherto. 
December 12th: 

"After an early breakfast [my nephew] George 
Washington, Mr. Shaw and Myself went into the 
Woods back of the Muddy hole Plantation a hunt- 
ing and were joined by Mr. Lund Washington and 
Mr. William Peake. About half after ten Oclock 
(being first plagued with the Dogs running Hogs) 
we found a fox near Colo Masons Plantation on 
little Hunting Creek (West fork) having followed 
on his Drag more than half a Mile; and run him 
with Eight Dogs (the other 4 getting, as was sup- 
posed after a Second Fox) close and well for an 
hour. When the Dogs came to a fault and to cold 
Hunting until 20 minutes after when being joined 
by the missing Dogs they put him up afresh and in 
about 50 Minutes killed up in an open field of Colo 



264 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

Mason's every Rider^ every Dog being present at 
the Death." 

Eight days later the pack chased two foxes, but 
caught neither. The next hunt is described as fol- 
lows: 

"Went a Fox hunting with the Gentlemen who 
came here yesterday with Ferdinando Washington 
and Mr. Shaw, after a very early breakfast. — found 
a Fox just back of Muddy hole Plantation and after 
a Chase for an hour and a quarter with my Dogs, & 
eight couple of Doctor Smiths (brought by Mr. Phil 
Alexander) we put him into a hollow tree, in which 
we fastened him, and in the Pincushion put up an- 
other Fox which, in an hour and 13 Minutes was 
killed — We then after allowing the Fox in the hole 
half an hour put the Dogs upon his Trail & in half 
a Mile he took to another hollow tree and was again 
put out of it but he did not go 600 yards before he 
had recourse to the same shift — finding therefore 
that he was a conquered Fox we took the Dogs off, 
and came home to dinner." 

Custis asserts that Washington took his last hunt 
in 1785, but in the diary under date of December 
22, 1787, 1 find that he went out with Major George 
A. Washington and others on that day, but found 



A FARMER'S AMUSEMENTS 265 

nothing, and that he took still another hunt in Janu- 
ary, 1788, and chased a fox that had been captured 
the previous month. This, however, is the last refer- 
ence that I have discovered. No doubt he was less 
resilient than in his younger days and found the 
sport less delightful than of yore, while the duties of 
the presidency, to which he was soon called, left him 
little leisure for sport. He seems to have broken up 
his kennels and to have given away most or all of his 
hounds. 

Later he acquired a pair of "tarriers" and took 
enough interest in them to write detailed instruc- 
tions concerning them in 1796. 

Washington's fishing was mostly done with a seine 
as a commercial proposition, but he seems to have 
had a mild interest in angling. Occasionally he took 
trips up and down the Potomac in order to fish, 
sometimes with a hook and line, at other times with 
seines and nets. He and Doctor Craik took fishing 
tackle with them on both their western tours and 
made use of it in some of the mountain streams and 
also in the Ohio. While at the Federal Convention 
in 1787 he and Gouverneur Morris went up to Val- 
ley Forge partly perhaps to see the old camp, but 
ostensibly to fish for trout. They lodged at the home 



266 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

of a widow named Moore. On the trip the Farmer 
learned the Pennsylvania way of raising buckwheat 
and, it must be confessed, wrote down much more 
about this topic than about trout. A few days later, 
with Gouverneur Morris and Mr. and Mrs. Robert 
Morris, he went up to Trenton and "in the evening 
iished," with what success he does not relate. When 
on his eastern tour of 1789 he went outside the har- 
bor of Portsmouth to fish for cod, but the tide was 
unfavorable and they caught only two. More for- 
tunate was a trip off Sandy Hook the next year, 
which was thus described by a newspaper : 

''Yesterday afternoon the President of the United 
States returned from Sandy Hook and the fishing 
banks, where he had been for the benefit of the sea 
air, and to amuse himself in the delightful recreation 
of fishing. We are told he has had excellent sport, 
having himself caught a great number of sea-bass 
and black fish — the weather proved remarkably fine, 
v/hich, together with the salubrity of the air and 
wholesome exercise, rendered this little voyage ex- 
tremely agreeable." 

Our Farmer was extremely fond of fish as an ar- 
ticle of diet and took great pains to have them on 
his table frequently. At Mount Vernon there was 



A FARMER'S AMUSEMENTS 267 

an ancient black man, reputed to be a centenarian 
and the son of an African King, whose duty it was 
to keep the household supplied with fish. On many 
a morning he could be seen out on the river in his 
skiff, beguiling the toothsome perch, bass or rock- 
fish. Not infrequently he would fall asleep and then 
the impatient cook, who had orders to have dinner 
strictly upon the hour, would be compelled to seek 
the shore and roar at him. Old Jack would waken 
and upon rowing to shore would inquire angrily: 
"What you all mek such a debbil of a racket for 
hey? I wa'nt asleep, only noddin'." 

Another colored factotum about the place was 
known as Tom Davis, whose duty it was to supply 
the Mansion House with game. With the aid of his 
old British musket and of his Newfoundland dog 
"Gunner" he secured many a canvasback and mal- 
lard, to say nothing of quails, turkeys and other 
game. 

After the Revolution Washington formed a deer 
park below the hill on which the Mansion House 
stands. The park contained about one hundred acres 
and was surrounded by a high paling about sixteen 
hundred yards long. At first he had only Virginia 
deer, but later acquired some English fallow deer 



268 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

from the park of Governor Ogle of Maryland. Both 
varieties herded together, but never mixed blood. 
The deer were continually getting out and in Feb- 
ruary, 1786, one returned with a broken leg, "sup- 
posed to be by a shot." Seven years later an English 
buck that had broken out weeks before was killed by 
some one. The paddock fence was neglected and 
ultimately the deer ran half wild over the estate, but 
in general stayed in the wooded region surrounding 
the Mansion House. The gardener frequently com- 
plained of damage done by them to shrubs and 
plants, and Washington said he hardly knew 
"whether to give up the Shrubs or the Deer !" The 
spring before his death we find him writing to the 
brothers Chickesters warning them to cease hunting 
his deer and he hints that he may come to "the dis- 
agreeable necessity of resorting to other means." 

George Washington Custis, being like his father 
"Jacky" an enthusiastic hunter, long teased the Gen- 
eral to permit him to hunt the deer and at last won 
consent to shoot one buck. The lad accordingly 
loaded an old British musket with two ounce-balls, 
sallied forth and wounded one of the patriarchs of 
the herd, which was then chased into the Potomac 
and there slain. Next day the buck was served up 



A FARMER'S AMUSEMENTS 269 

to several guests, and Custis long afterward treas- 
ured the antlers at Arlington House, the residence 
he later built across the Potomac from the Federal 
City. 

Upon the whole we must conclude that Washing- 
ton was one of the best sportsmen of all our Presi- 
dents. He was not so much of an Izaak Walton as 
was one of his successors, nor did he pursue the lion 
and festive bongo to their African lairs as did an- 
other, but he had a keen love of nature and the open 
country and would have found both the Mighty 
Hunter and the Mighty Angler kindred spirits. 



CHAPTER XV 

A CRITICAL VISITOR AT MOUNT VERNON 

A BOUT thirty miles down the river Potomac, a 
j\ gentleman, of the name of Grimes, came up 
to us in his own boat.* He had some little time be- 



* This chapter is taken from A Tour of America in i^q8, 
lygg, and 1800, by Richard Parkinson, who has already been 
several times quoted. Parkinson had won something of a name 
in England as a scientific agriculturist and had published a 
book called the Experienced Farmer, He negotiated by letter 
with Washington for the rental of one of the Mount Vernon 
farms, and in 1798, without having made any definite engage- 
ment, sailed for the Potomac with a cargo of good horses, 
cattle and hogs. His plan for renting Washington's farm fell 
through, by his account because it was so poor, and ultimately 
he settled for a time near Baltimore, where he underwent such 
experiences as an opinionated Englishman with new methods 
would be likely to meet. Soured by failure, he returned to 
England, and published an account of his travels, partly with 
the avowed purpose of discouraging emigration to America. 
His opinion of the country he summed up thus : "If a man 
should be so unfortunate as to have married a wife of a ca- 
pricious disposition, let him take her to America, and keep her 
there three or four years in a country-place at some distance 
from a town, and afterwards bring her back to England; if 
she do not act with propriety, he may be sure there is no 
remedy." I have rearranged his account in such a way as to 
make it consecutive, but otherwise it stands as originally pub- 
lished. 

270 



A CRITICAL VISITOR 271 

fore shot a man who was going across his planta- 
tion ; and had been tried for so doing, but not pun- 
ished. He came aboard, and behaved very politely 
to me : and it being near dinner time, he would have 
me go ashore and dine with him : which I did. He 
gave me some grape- juice to drink, which he called 
Port wine, and entertained me with saying he made 
it himself : it was not to my taste equal to our Port 
in England, nor even strong beer ; but a hearty wel- 
come makes everything pleasant, and this he most 
cheerfully gave me. He showed me his garden ; the 
produce of which, he told me, he sold at Alexandria, 
a distance of thirty miles. His garden was in disor- 
der: and so was everything else I saw about the 
place ; except a favourite stallion, which was in very 
good condition — a pretty figure of a horse, and of 
proper size for the road, about fifteen hands high. 
He likewise showed me some other horses, brood- 
mares and foals, young colts, &c. of rather an use- 
ful kind. His cattle were small, but all much better 
than the land. 

He praised the soil very highly. I asked him if 
he was acquainted with the land at Mount Vernon. 
He said he was ; and represented it to be rich land, 
but not so rich as his. Yet his I thought very poor 



272 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

indeed; for it was (as is termed in America) gullied; 
which I call broken land. This effect is produced 
by the winter's frost and summer's rain, which cut 
the land into cavities of from ten feet wide and ten 
'feet deep (and upwards) in many places ; and, added 
to this, here and there a hole, which makes it look 
altogether like marlpits, or stone-quarries, that have 
been carried away by those hasty showers in the 
summer, which no man who has not seen them in 
this climate could form any idea of or believe pos- 
sible. . . . 

In two days after we left this place, we came in 
sight of Mount Vernon; but in all the way up the 
river, I did not see any green fields. The country 
had to me a most barren appearance. There were 
none but snake- fences; which are rails laid with the 
ends of one upon another, from eight to sixteen in 
number in one length. The surface of the earth 
looked like a yellow- washed wall ; for it had been a 
very dry summer ; and there was not any thing that I 
could see green, except the pine trees in the woods, 
and the cedars, which made a truly picturesque view 
as we sailed up the Potomac. It is indeed a most 
beautiful river. 

When we arrived at Mount Vernon, I found that 



A CRITICAL VISITOR 273 

General Washington was at Philadelphia; but his 
steward* had orders from the General to receive me 
and my family, with all the horses, cattle, &c. which 
I had on board. A boat was, therefore, got ready for 
landing them ; but that could not be done, as the ship 
must be cleared out at some port before anything 
was moved : so, after looking about a few minutes 
at Mount Vernon, I returned to the ship, and we be- 
gan to make way for Alexandria. . . . 

When I had been about seven days at Alexandria, 
I hired a horse and went to Mount Vernon, to view 
my intended farm; of which General Washington 
had given me a plan, and a report along with it — 
the rent being fixed at eighteen hundred bushels of 
wheat for twelve hundred acres, or money according 
to the price of that grain. I must confess that if he 
would have given me the inheritance of the land for 
that sum, I durst not have accepted it, especially 
with the incumbrances upon it; viz. one hundred 
seventy slaves young and old, and out of that num- 
ber only twenty-sevenf In a condition to work, as the 
steward represented to me. I viewed the whole of 
the cultivated estate — about three thousand acres; 



* No doubt Anderson, Washington's last manager. 
t Most certainly a mistake. 



274 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

and afterward dined with Mrs. Washington and the 
family. Here I met a Doctor Thornton, who is a 
very pleasant agreeable man, and his lady; with a 
Mr. Peters and his lady, who was a grand-daughter 
of Mrs. Washington. Doctor Thornton living at the 
city of Washington, he gave me an invitation to visit 
him there : he was one of the commissioners of the 
city. 

I slept at Mount Vernon, and experienced a very 
kind and comfortable reception; but did not like the 
land at all. I saw no green grass there, except in the 
garden : and this was some English grass, appearing 
to me to be a sort of couch-grass; it was in drills. 
There were also six saint foin plants, which I found 
the General valued highly. I viewed the oats which 
were not thrashed, and counted the grains upon each 
head ; but found no stem with more than four grains, 
and these a very light and bad quality, such as I had 
never seen before : the longest straw was of about 
twelve inches. The wheat was all thrashed, there- 
fore I could not ascertain the produce of that : I saw 
some of the straw, however, and thought it had been 
cut and prepared for the cattle in the winter; but I 
believe I was mistaken, it being short by nature, and 
with thrashing out looked like chaff, or as if chopped 



A CRITICAL VISITOR 275 

with a bad knife. The General had two thrashing 
machines, the power given by horses. The clover 
was very little in bulk, and like chaff; not more than 
nine inches long, and the leaf very much shed from 
the stalk. By the stubbles on the land I could not tell 
which had been wheat, or which had been oats or 
barley; nor could I see any clover-roots where the 
clover had grown. The weather was hot and dry 
at that time; it was in December. The whole of the 
different fields were covered with either the stalks of 
weeds, corn-stalks, or what is called sedge — some- 
thing like spear-grass upon the poor limestone in 
England ; and the steward told me nothing would eat 
it, which is true. Indeed, he found fault with every- 
thing, just like a foreigner; and even told me many 
unpleasant tales of the General, so that I began to 
think he feared I was coming to take his place. But 
(God knows!) I would not choose to accept of it: 
for he had to superintend four hundred slaves, and 
there would be more now. This part of his business 
especially would have been painful to me; it is, in 
fact, a sort of trade of itself. 

I had not in all this time seen what we in England 
call a corn-stack, nor a dung-hill. There were, in- 
deed, behind the General's barns, two or three cocks 



276 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

of oats and barley; but such as an English broad- 
wheeled waggon would have carried a hundred miles 
at one time with ease. Neither had I seen a green 
plant of any kind : there was some clover of the first 
year's sowing : but in riding over the fields I should 
not have known it to be clover, although the steward 
told me it was; only when I came under a tree I 
could, by favour of the shade, perceive here and 
there a green leaf of clover, but I do not remember 
seeing a green root. I was shown no grass-hay of 
any kind ; nor do I believe there was any. 

The cattle were very poor and ordinary, and the 
sheep the same ; nor did I see any thing I liked ex- 
cept the mules, which were very fine ones, and in 
good condition. Mr. Gough had made a present to 
General Washington of a bull calf. The animal was 
shown to me when I first landed at Mount Vernon, 
and was the first bull I saw in the country. He was 
large, and very strong- featured; the largest part was 
his head, the next his legs. The General's steward 
was a Scotchman, and no judge of animals— -a bet- 
ter judge of distilling whiskey. 

I saw here a greater number of negroes than I 
ever saw at one time, either before or since. 

The house is a very decent mansion: not large, 



A CRITICAL VISITOR 277 

and something like a gentleman's house in England, 
with gardens and plantations; and is very prettily 
situated on the banks of the river Potowmac, with 
extensive prospects. . . . The roads are very bad 
from Alexandria to Mount Vernon. 

The General still continuing at Philadelphia, I 
could not have the pleasure of seeing him; therefore 
I returned to Alexandria. 

I returned [to Mount Vernon some weeks later] 
. . . to see General Washington. I dined with 
him; and he showed me several presents that had 
been sent him, viz. swords, china, and among the 
rest the key of the Bastille. I spent a very pleasant 
day in the house, as the weather was so severe that 
there were no farming objects to see, the ground 
being covered with snow. 

Would General Washington have given me the 
twelve hundred acres I would not have accepted it, 
to have been confined to live in that country ; and to 
convince the General of the cause of my determina- 
tion, I was compelled to treat him with a great deal 
of frankness. The General, who had corresponded 
with Mr. Arthur Young and others on the subject 
of English farming and soils, and had been not a 
little flattered by different gentlemen from England, 



278 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

seemed at first to be not well pleased with my con- 
versation; but I gave him some strong proofs of his 
mistakes, by making a comparison between the lands 
in America and those of England in two respects. 
First, in the article of sheep. He supposed himself 
to have fine sheep, and a great quantity of them. At 
the time of my viewing his five farms, which con- 
sisted of about three thousand acres cultivated, he 
had one hundred sheep, and those in very poor con- 
dition. This was in tl]e month of November. To 
show him his mistake in the value and quality of his 
land, I compared this with the farm my father oc- 
cupied, which was less than six hundred acres. He 
clipped eleven hundred sheep, though some of his 
land was poor and at two shillings and sixpence per 
acre — the highest was at twenty shillings; the aver- 
age weight of the wool was ten pounds per fleece, 
and the carcases weighed from eighty to one hun- 
dred twenty poinds each: while in the General's 
hundred sheep on three thousand acres, the wool 
would not weigh on an average more than three 
pounds and a half the fleece, and the carcases at 
forty-eight pounds each. Secondly, the proportion 
of the produce in grain was similar. The General's 



A CRITICAL VISITOR 279 

crops were from two to three* bushels of wheat per 
acre ; and my father's farm, although poor clay soil, 
gave from twenty to thirty bushels. 

During this conversation Colonel Lear, aide-de- 
camp to the General, was present. When the Gen- 
eral left the room, the Colonel told me he had him- 
self been in England, and had seen Arthur Young 
(who had been frequently named by the General in 
our conversation) ; and that Mr. Young having 
learnt that he was in the mercantile line, and was 
possessed of much land, had said he thought he was 
a great fool to be a merchant and yet have so much 
land: the Colonel replied, that if Mr. Young had 
the same land to cultivate, it would make a great fool 
of him. The Colonel did me the honour to say I was 
the only man he ever knew to treat General Wash- 
ington with frankness. 

The General's cattle at that time were all in poor 
condition: except his mules (bred from American 
mares), which wxre very fine, and the Spanish ass 
sent to him as a present by the king of Spain. I felt 
myself much vexed at an expression used at dinner 
by Mrs. Washington. When the General and the 



* A misstatement, of course. 



280 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

company at table were talking about the fine horses 
and cattle I had brought from England, Mrs. Wash- 
ington said, "I am afraid, Mr. Parkinson, you have 
brought your fine horses and cattle to a bad mar- 
ket; I am of opinion that our horses and cattle are 
good enough for our land." I thought that if every 
old woman in the country knew this, my speculation 
would answer very ill : as I perfectly agreed with 
Mrs. Washington in sentiment; and wondered 
much, from the poverty of the land, to see the cat- 
tle good as they were. 

The General wished me to stay all night ; but hav- 
ing some other engagement, I declined his kind of- 
fer. He sent Colonel Lear out after I had parted 
with him, to ask me if I wanted any money; which 
I gladly accepted. 



CHAPTER XVI 

PROFIT AND LOSS 

A BIOGRAPHER whose opinions about Wash- 
^ ington are usually sound concludes that the 
General was a failure as a farmer. With this opin- 
ion I am unable to agree and I am inclined to think 
that in forming it he had in mind temporary finan- 
cial stringencies and perhaps a comparison between 
Washington and the scientific farmers of to-day in- 
stead of the juster comparison with the farmers of 
that day. For if Washington was a failure, then 
nine-tenths of the Southern planters of his day were 
also failures, for their methods and results were 
much worse than his. 

It must be admitted, however, that comparatively 
little of his fortune, which amounted at his death to 
perhaps three-quarters of a million dollars, was made 
by the sale of products from his farm. Few farmers 
have grown rich in that way. Washington's wealth 
was due in part to inheritance and a fortunate mar- 

281 



2%2 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

riage, but most of all to the increment on land. Part 
of this land he received as a reward for military 
services, but much of it he was shrewd enough to 
buy at a low rate and hold until it became more val- 
uable. 

The task of analyzing his fortune and income in 
detail is an impossible one for a number of reasons. 
We do not have all the facts of his financial opera- 
tions and even if we had there are other difficulties. 
A farmer, unlike a salaried man, can not tell with 
any exactness what his true income is. The salaried 
man can say, "This year I received four thousand 
dollars." The farmer can only say — if he is the one 
in a hundred who keeps accounts — "Last year I took 
in two thousand dollars or five thousand dollars," as 
the case may be. From this sum he must deduct 
expenses for labor, wear and tear of farm ma- 
chinery, pro rata cost of new tools and machinery, 
loss of soil fertility, must take into account the 
fact that some of the stock sold has been growing 
for one, two or more years, must allow for the but- 
ter and eggs bartered for groceries and for the value 
of the two cows he traded for a horse, must add the 
value of the rent of the house and grounds he and 
his family have enjoyed, the value of the chickens, 



PROFIT AND LOSS 283 

eggs, vegetables, fruit, milk, meat and other produce 
of the farm consumed — as he proceeds the problem 
becomes infinitely more complex until at last he gives 
it up as hopeless. 

This much, however, is plain — a farmer can 
handle much less money than a salaried man and yet 
live infinitely better, for his rent, much of hi^ food 
and many other things cost him nothing. 

In Washington's case the problem is further com- 
plicated by a number of circumstances. As a result 
of his marriage he had some money upon bond. For 
his military services in the French war he received 
large grants of land and the payment during the 
Revolution of his personal expenses, and as Presi- 
dent he had a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars 
a year. 

Yet another difficulty discloses itself when we 
come to examine his cash accounts. We find, for ex- 
ample, that from August 3, 1775, to September, 
1783, leaving out of the reckoning his military re- 
ceipts, he took in a total of about eighty thousand one 
hundred sixty-seven pounds. What then more simple 
than to divide this sum by seven and ascertain his 
average receipts during the years of the Revolution? 
But when we come to examine some of the details 



284 GEORGE WASHINGTON—FARMER 

more closely we are brought to pause. We discover 
such facts as that in 1780 a small steer, supposed 
to weigh about three hundred pounds, brought five 
hundred pounds in money! A sheep sold for one 
hundred pounds; six thousand five hundred sixty- 
nine pounds of dressed beef brought six thousand 
five hundred sixty-nine pounds; the stud fee for 
"Steady" was sixty pounds. In other words, the 
accounts in these years were in depreciated pa- 
per and utterly worthless for our purposes. Wash- 
ington himself gave the puzzle up in despair toward 
the end of the war and paid his manager in produce, 
not money. 

We of to-day have, in fact, not the faintest concep- 
tion of the blessing we enjoy in a uniform and fairly 
stable monetary system. Even before the days of the 
"Continentals" there was depreciated paper afloat 
that had been issued by the colonial governments 
and, unless the fact is definitely stated, when we 
come upon figures of that period we can never be 
sure whether they refer to pounds sterling or pounds 
paper, or, if the latter, what kind of paper. People 
had to be constantly figuring the real value of Penn- 
sylvania money, or Virginia money or Massachu- 
setts money, and one meets with many such calcula- 



PROFIT AND LOSS 285 

tions on the blank leaves of Washington's account 
books. Even metallic money was a Chinese puzzle 
except to the initiated, there were so many kinds of 
it afloat. Among our Farmer's papers I have found 
a list of the money that he took with him to Phila- 
delphia on one occasion — 6 joes, 67 half joes, 2 one- 
eighteenth joes, 3 doubloons, 1 pistole, 2 moidores, 
1 half moidore, 2 double louis d'or, 3 single louis 
d'or, 80 guineas, 7 half guineas, besides silver and 
bank-notes. 

The depreciation of the paper currency during 
the Revolution proved disastrous to him in several 
ways. When the war broke out much of the money 
he had obtained by marriage was loaned out on 
bond, or, as we would say to-day, on mortgage. "I 
am now receiving," he soon wrote, "a shilling in the 
pound in discharge of Bonds which ought to have 
been paid me, & would have been realized before I 
left Virginia, but for my indulgences to the debt- 
ors." In 1778 he said that six or seven thousand 
pounds that he had in bonds upon interest had been 
paid in depreciated paper, so that the real value was 
now reduced to as many hundreds. Some of the 
paper money that came into his hands he invested 
in government securities, and at least ten thousand 



286 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

pounds of these in Virginia money were ultimately 
funded by the federal government for six thousand 
two hundred and forty-six dollars in three and six 
per cent, bonds. 

And yet, by examining Washington's accounts, 
one is able to estimate in a rough way the returns 
he received from his estate, landed and otherwise. 
We find that in ten months of 1759 he took in 
£1,839; from January 1, 1760, to January 10, 1761, 
about £2,535; in 1772, £3,213; from August 3, 
1775, to August 30, 1776, £2,119; in 1786, £2,025; 
in 1791, about £2,025. Included in some of these 
entries, particularly the earlier ones, are payments 
of interest and principal on his wife's share of the 
Custis estate. Of the later ones, that for 1786 — ^a 
bad farming year — includes rentals on more than a 
score of parcels of land amounting to £282.15, £25 
rental on his fishery, payments for flour, stud fees, 
etc. 

Upon the average, therefore, I am inclined to be- 
lieve that his annual receipts were roughly in the 
neighborhood of ten thousand dollars to fifteen 
thousand dollars a year from his estate. 

As regards Mount Vernon alone, he sometimes 
made estimates of what the crop returns ought to 



ey^c/ie/^. . -^2^^^ 













- ~-^- ^' /2S./3-.0 










£:^j2.r^ic.:^ , ^ ^7cj -/^ -7. 5? 



W'-^./a 



^v:3>A.c>->4 



A Page from a Cash Memorandum Book 



PROFIT AND LOSS 287 

be; in other words, counted his chickens before they 
were hatched. Thus in 1789 he drew up alternative 
plans and estimated that one of these, if adopted, 
ought to produce crops worth a gross of £3,091, an- 
other £3,831, and a third £4,449, but that from these 
sums £1,357, £1,394 and £1,445 respectively would 
have to be deducted for seed, food for man and 
beasts, and other expenses. 

A much better idea of the financial returns from 
his home estate can be obtained from his actual bal- 
ances of gain and loss. One of these, namely for 
1798, which was a poor year, was as follows : 

BALANCE OF GAIN AND LOSS, 1798 

DR. GAINED CR. LOST 

Dogue Run Farm 397.11.2 Mansion House.. 466.18. 2^ 

Union Farm 529.10.11H Muddy Hole Farm 60. 1. 3^^ 

River Farm 234. 4.11 Spinning 51. 2. 

Smith's Shop .... 34.12.09^ Hire of Head 

Distillery 83.13. 1 overseer 140. 0. 

Jacks 56.1 

Traveler 9.17 

(stud horse) 

Shoemaker 28.17. 1 

Fishery 165.12. 0^^ By clear gain on 

Dairy 30.12. 3 the Estate i898.16. 4^ 

Mr. Paul Leicester Ford considered this "a pretty 
poor showing for an estate and negroes which had 
certainly cost him over fifty thousand dollars, and 



288 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

on which there was live stock which at the lowest 
estimation was worth fifteen thousand dollars 
more." In some respects it was a poor showing. 
Yet the profit Washington sets down is about seven 
per cent, upon sixty-five thousand dollars, and seven 
per cent, is more than the average farmer makes off 
his farm to-day except through the appreciation in 
the value of the land. The truth is, however, that 
Mount Vernon, including the live stock and slaves, 
was really worth in 1798 nearer two hundred thou- 
sand dollars than sixty-five thousand, so that the 
actual return would only be about two and a fourth 
per cent. 

But Washington failed to include in his receipts 
many items, such as the use of a fine mansion for 
himself and family, the use of horses and vehicles, 
and the added value of slaves and live stock by natu- 
ral increase. 

Besides in some other years the profits were much 
larger. 

And lastly, in judging a man's success or failure 
as a farmer, allowance must be made for the kind 
of land that he has to farm. The Mount Vernon 
land was undoubtedly poor in quality, and it is prob- 
able that Washington got more out of it than has 



PROFIT AND LOSS 289 

ever been got out of it by any other person either 
before or since. Much of it to-day must not pay 
taxes. 

Washington died possessed of property worth 
about three-quarters of a million, although he be- 
gan life glad to earn a doubloon a day surveying. 
The main sources of this wealth have already been 
indicated, but when all allowance is made in these 
respects, the fact remains that he was compelled to 
make a living and to keep expenses paid during the 
forty years in which the fortune was accumulating, 
and the main source he drew from was his farms. 
Not much of that living came from the Custis estate, 
for, as we have seen, a large part of the money thus 
acquired was lost. During his eight years as Com- 
mander-in-Chief he had his expenses — no more. Of 
the eight years of his presidency much the same can 
be said, for all authorities agree that he expended 
all of his salary in maintaining his position and some 
say that he spent more. Yet at the end of his life we 
find him with much more land than he had in 1760, 
with valuable stocks and bonds, a house and furni- 
ture infinitely superior to the eight-room house he 
first owned, two houses in the Federal City that had 
cost him about $15,000, several times as many ne- 



290 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

groes, and live stock estimated by himself at $15,653 
and by his manager at upward of twice that sum. 

Such being the case — and as no one has ever ven- 
tured even to hint that he made money corruptly 
out of his official position — the conclusion is irre- 
sistible that he was a good business man and that 
he made farming pay, particularly when he was at 
home. 

It is true that only three months before his death 
he wrote: "The expense at which I live, and the 
unproductiveness of my estate, will not allow me to 
lessen my income while I remain in my present situa- 
tion. On the contrary, were it not for occasional 
supplies of money in payment for lands sold within 
the last four or five years, to the amount of upwards 
of fifty thousand dollars, I should not be able to sup- 
port the former without involving myself in debt 
and difficulties." This must be taken, however, to 
apply to a single period of heavy expense when for- 
eign complications and other causes rendered farm- 
ing unprofitable, rather than to his whole career. 
Furthermore, his landed investments from which he 
could draw no returns were so heavy that he had 
approached the condition of being land poor and it 
was only proper that he should cut loose from some 
of them. 



CHAPTER XVII 

ODDS AND ENDS 

IN an age when organized charity was almost 
unknown the burden of such work fell mainly 
upon individuals. Being a man of great prominence 
and known to be wealthy, the proprietor of Mount 
Vernon was the recipient of many requests for 
assistance. Ministers wrote to beg money to rebuild 
churches or to convert the heathen; old soldiers 
wrote to ask for money to relieve family distresses 
or to use in business; from all classes and sections 
poured in requests for aid, financial and otherwise. 
It was inevitable that among these requests there 
should be some that were unusual. Perhaps the 
most amusing that I have discovered is one written 
by a young man named Thomas Bruff, from the 
Fountain Inn, Georgetown. He states that this is 
his second letter, but I have not found the first. 
In the letter we have he sets forth that he has 
lost all his property and desires a loan of 

291 



292 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

five hundred pounds. His need is urgent, for 
he is engaged to a beautiful and "amiable" 
young lady, possessed of an "Estate that will 
render me Independent. Whom I cannot Marry 
in my present situation. . . . All my Happyness 
is now depending upon your Goodness and without 
your kind assistance I must be forever miserable — 
I should have never thought of making application 
to you for this favor had it not been in Consequence 
of a vision by Night since my Fathers Death who 
appeared to me in a Dream in my Misfortunes three 
times in one Night telling me to make applycation 
to you for Money and that you would relieve me 
from my distresses, he appeared the other night 
again and asked me if I had obeyed his commands 
I informed him that I had Wrote to you some time 
ago but had Received no answer nor no information 
Relative to the Business he then observed that he 
expected my letter had not come to hand and toald 
me to Write again I made some Objections at first 
and toald him I thought it presumption in me to 
trouble your Excellency again on the subject he 
then in a Rage drew his Small Sword and toald me 
if I did not he would run me through I immediately 
in a fright consented." 



I 



ODDS AND ENDS 293 

One might suppose that so ingenious a request, 
picturing the deadly danger in which a young man 
stood from the shade of his progenitor, especially a 
young man who was thereby forced to keep a young 
lady waiting, would have aroused Washington's 
most generous impulses and caused him to send 
perhaps double the amount desired. Possibly he 
was hard up at the time. At all events he indorsed 
the letter thus : 

"Without date and without success." 
Many times, however, our Farmer was open- 
handed to persons who had no personal claim on 
him. For example, he loaned three hundred and two 
pounds to his old comrade of the French War- 
Robert Stewart — the purpose being to buy a com- 
mission in the British army. So far as I can dis- 
cover it was never repaid ; in fact, I am not sure but 
that he intended it as a gift. Another advance was 
that made to Charles L. Carter, probably the young 
man who later married a daughter of Washington's 
sister, Betty Lewis. Most of the story is told in the 
following extract from a letter written by Carter 
from Fredericksburg, June 2, 1797 : 

"With diffidence I now address you in conse- 
quence of having failed after my first voyage from 



294 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

China, to return the two hundred Dollars you fa- 
vored me with the Loan of. Be assured Dr. Sir 
that I left goods unsold at the time of my Departure 
from Philadelphia on the second voyage, & directed 
that the money arising therefrom should be paid to 
you, but the integrity of my agent did not prove to 
be so uncorrupted as I had flattered myself. I have, 
at this late period, sent by Mr. G. Tevis the sum of 
two hundred Dollars w^ith interest therefrom from 
the 15th of March 1795 to the 1st June, 1797. That 
sum has laid the foundation of a pretty fortune, for 
which I shall ever feel myself indebted to you." 

He added that he had been refused the loan by a 
near relation before Washington had so kindly 
obliged him and that his mother, who was evidently 
acquainted with Washington, joined in hearty 
thanks for the benefit received. 

Washington had experienced enough Instances of 
Ingratitude to be much pleased with the outcome of 
this affair. He replied in the kindest terms, but 
declined to receive the Interest, saying that he had 
not made the loan as an Investment and that he did 
not desire a profit from It. 

Another recipient of Washington's bounty was 
his old neighbor. Captain John Posey. Posey sold 



ODDS AND ENDS 295 

Washington not only his Ferry Farm but also his 
claim to western lands. He became financially em- 
barrassed, in fact, ruined ; his family was scattered, 
and he made frequent applications to Washington 
for advice and assistance. Washington helped to 
educate a son, St. Lawrence, who had been reduced 
to the hard expedient of tending bar in a tavern, 
and he also kept a daughter, Milly, at Mount Ver- 
non, perhaps as a sort of companion to Mrs. Wash- 
ington. The Captain once wrote : 

"I could [have] been able to [have] Satisfied all 
my old Arrears, some months AGoe, by marrying 
[an] old widow woman in this County. She has 
large soms [of] cash by her, and Prittey good Est. 
— She is as thick as she is high— And gits drunk 
at Least three or foure [times] a weak — which is 
Disagreable to me — has Viliant Sperrit when Drunk 
— its been [a] great Dispute in my mind what to 
Doe, — I beleave I shu'd Run all Resks — if my Last 
wife, had been [an] Even temper'd woman, but her 
Sperrit, has Given me such [a] Shock— that I am 
afraid to Run the Resk again." 

Evidently the Captain did not find a way out of 
his troubles by the matrimonial route, for somewhat 
later he was in jail at Queenstown, presumably for 



296 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

debt, and we find in one of Washington's cash mem- 
orandum books under date of October 15, 1773: 
''By Chanty — given Captn. Posey," four pounds. 
One of the sons later settled in Indiana, and the 
'Tocket'* county is named after him. 

Another boy toward whose education Washing- 
ton contributed was the son of Doctor James Craik 
— the boy being a namesake. Doctor Craik was one 
of Washington's oldest and dearest friends. He 
was born in Scotland two years before Washington 
saw the light at Wakefield, graduated from Edin- 
burgh University, practised medicine in the West 
Indies for a short time and then came to Virginia. 
He was Washington's comrade in arms in the Fort 
Necessity campaign, was subsequently surgeon gen- 
eral in the Continental Army, and accompanied 
Washington to the Ohio both in 1770 and 1784. 
He married Mariane Ewell, a relative of Wash- 
ington's mother, and resided many years in Alexan- 
dria. He was a frequent visitor at Mount Vernon 
both as a friend and in a professional capacity, and 
Washington declared that he would rather trust him 
than a dozen other doctors. Few men were so close 
to the great man as he, and he was one of the few 
who in his letters ventured to tell chatty matters of 



ODDS AND ENDS 297 

gossip. Thus, in August, 1791, he wrote a letter 
apropos of the bad health of George A. Washington 
and added: "My daughter Nancy is there [Mt. 
Vernon] by way of Amusement awhile. She be- 
gins to be tired of her Fathers house and I believe 
intends taking an old Batchelor Mr. Hn. for a mate 
shortly." Another young lady, Miss Muir, who had 
recently gone to Long Island for the benefit of the 
sea baths was "pursued" by a Mr. Donaldson and 
the latter now writes that "he shall bring back a 
wife with him." Craik was a thorough believer in 
Washington's destiny, and in the dark days of the 
Revolution would hearten up his comrades by the 
story of the Indian chieftain met upon the Ohio in 
1770 who had vainly tried to kill Washington in the 
battle of the Monongahela and had finally desisted 
in the belief that he was invulnerable. 

To friends, family, church, education and stran- 
gers our Farmer was open-handed beyond most men 
of his time. His manager had orders to fill a corn- 
house every year for the sole use of the poor in 
the neighborhood and this saved numbers of poor 
women and children from extreme want. He also 
allowed the honest poor to make use of his fishing 
stations, furnishing them with all necessary appa- 



298 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

ratus for taking herring, and if they were unequal 
to the task of hauling the seine, assistance was ren- 
dered them by the General's servants. 

To Lund Washington he wrote from the camp at 
Cambridge : *Tet the hospitality of the house, with 
respect to the poor, be kept up. Let no one go 
hungry away. If any of this kind of people should 
be in want of corn, supply their necessaries, pro- 
vided that it does not encourage them to idleness; 
and I have no objection to you giving my money 
in charity to the amount of forty or fifty pounds a 
year, when you think it well bestowed. What I 
mean by having no objection is, that it is my desire 
it should be done. You are to consider that neither 
myself nor wife is now in the way to do these good 
offices." 

His relations with his own kindred were patri- 
archal in character. His care of Mrs. Washing- 
ton's children and grandchildren has already been 
described. He gave a phaeton and money to the 
extent of two thousand five hundred dollars to his 
mother and did not claim possession of some of the 
land left him by his father's will. To his sister 
Betty Lewis he gave a mule and many other pres- 
ents, as well as employment to several of her sons. 



ODDS AND ENDS 299 

He loaned his brother Samuel (five times married) 
considerable sums, which he forgave in his will, 
spent "near five thousand dollars" on the education 
of two of his sons, and cared for several years for a 
daughter Harriot, notwithstanding the fact that she 
had "no disposition . . . to be careful of her 
cloaths." To his nephew, Bushrod Washington, he 
gave money and helped him to obtain a legal educa- 
tion, and he assisted another nephew, George A. 
Washington, and his widow and children, in ways 
already mentioned. Over forty relatives were re- 
membered in his will, many of them in a most sub- 
stantial manner. 

In the matter of eating and drinking Washington 
was abstemious. For breakfast he ordinarily had 
tea and Indian cakes with butter and perhaps honey, 
of which he was very fond. His supper was equally 
light, consisting of perhaps tea and toast, with wine, 
and he usually retired promptly at nine o'clock. Din- 
ner was the main meal of the day at Mount Vernon, 
and was served punctually at two o'clock. One such 
meal is thus described by a guest : 

"He thanked us, desired us to be seated, and to 
excuse him a few moments. . . . The President 
came and desired us to walk in to dinner and di- 



300 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

rected us where to sit, (^o grace was said). . . . 
The dinner was very good, a small roasted pigg, 
boiled leg of lamb, roasted fowls, beef, peas, lettice, 
cucumbers, artichokes, etc., puddings, tarts, etc. etc. 
We were desired to call for what drink we chose. 
He took a glass of wine with Mrs. Law first, which 
example was followed by Dr. Croker Crakes and 
Mrs. Washington, myself and Mrs. Peters, Mr. 
Fayette and the young lady whose name is Custis. 
When the cloth was taken away the President gave 
*all our Friends.' " 

The General ordinarily confined himself to a few 
courses and if offered anything very rich would 
reply, "That is too good for me." He often drank 
beer with the meal, with one or two glasses of wine 
and perhaps as many more afterward, often eating 
nuts, another delicacy with him, as he sipped the 
wine. 

He was, in fact, no prohibitionist, but he was a 
strong believer in temperance. He and the public 
men of his time, being aristocrats, were wine drink- 
ers and few of them were drunkards. The political 
revolution of 1830, ushered in by Jackson, brought 
in a different type — Westerners who drank whisky 
and brandy, with the result that drunkenness in pub- 







One of Washington's Tavern Bills 



ODDS AND ENDS 301 

lie station was much more common. Many of the 
Virginia gentlemen of Washington's day spent a 
fourth or even a third of their income upon their 
cellars. He was no exception to the rule, and from 
his papers we discover many purchases of wine. One 
of the last bills of lading I have noticed among his 
papers is a bill for "Two pipes of fine old Lon- 
don particular Madeira Wine," shipped to him from 
the island of Madeira, September 20, 1799. One 
wonders whether he got to toast "All our Friends" 
out of it before he died. 

His sideboard and table were well equipped with 
glasses and silver wine coolers of the most expen- 
sive construction. As in many other matters, his 
inventive bent turned in this direction. Having no- 
ticed the confusion that often arose from the pass- 
ing of the bottles about the table he designed when 
President a sort of silver caster capable of holding 
four bottles. They were used with great success 
on state occasions and were so convenient that other 
people adopted the invention, so that wine coasters, 
after the Washington design, became a part of the 
furniture of every fashionable sideboard. 

To cool wine, meat and other articles, Washing- 
ton early adopted the practice of putting up ice, a 



302 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

thing then unusual. Ii^anuary, 1785, he prepared 
a dry well under the summer house and also one in 
his new cellar and in due time had both filled. June 
fifth he "Opened the well in my Cellar in which I 
had laid up a store of Ice, but there was not the 
smallest particle remaining. — I then opened the 
other Repository (call the dry Well) in which I 
found a large store." Later he erected an ice house 
to the eastward of the flower garden. 

His experience with the cellar well was hardly less 
successful than that of his friend, James Madison, 
on a like occasion. Madison had an ice house filled 
with ice, and a skeptical overseer wagered a turkey 
against a mint julep that by the fourth of July the 
ice would all have disappeared. The day came, they 
opened the house, and behold there was enough ice 
for exactly one julep ! Truly a sad situation when 
there were two Virginia gentlemen. 

Mention of Madison in this connection calls to 
mind the popular notion that it was his wife Dolly 
who invented ice-cream. I believe that her biog- 
raphers claim for her the credit of the discovery. 
The role of the iconoclast is a thankless one and I 
confess to a liking for Dolly, but I have discovered 
in Washington's cash memorandum book under date 



ODDS AND ENDS 303 

of May 17, 1784, the entry: "By a Cream Machine 
for Ice," £1.13.4 — that is an ice-cream freezer. The 
immortal Dolly was then not quite twelve years old. 

Washington seems to have owned three coaches. 
The first he ordered in London in 1758 in prepara- 
tion for his marriage. It was to be fashionable, 
genteel and of seasoned wood; the body preferably 
green, with a light gilding on the mouldings, with 
other suitable ornaments including the Washington 
arms. It was sent v/ith high recommendations, but 
proved to be of badly seasoned material, so that the 
panels shrunk and slipped out of the mouldings 
within two months and split from end to end, much 
to his disgust. Such a chariot was driven not with 
lines from a driver's box, but by liveried postillions 
riding on horseback, one horseman to each span. 

The second coach he had made in Philadelphia in 
1780 at a cost of two hundred and ten pounds in 
specie. It was decidedly better built. 

The last was a coach, called "the White Chariot," 
bought second hand soon after he became President. 
It was built by Clarke, of Philadelphia, and was a 
fine vehicle, with a cream-colored body and wheels, 
green Venetian blinds and the Washington arms 
painted upon the doors. In this coach, drawn by six 



304 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

horses, he drove out in state at Philadelphia and 
rode to and from Mount Vernon, occasionally suf- 
fering an upset on the wretched roads. It was 
strong and of good workmanship and its maker 
heard with pride that it had made the long southern 
tour of 1791 without starting a nail or a screw. 
This coach was purchased at the sale of the Gen- 
eral's effects by George Washington Parke Custis 
and later in a curious manner fell into the possession 
of Bishop Meade, who ultimately made it up into 
walking sticks, picture frames, snuff boxes and such 
mementoes. 

At Mount Vernon to-day the visitor is shown a 
coach which the official Handbook states is vouched 
for as the original "White Chariot." In reality it 
seems to be the coach once owned by the Powell 
family of Philadelphia. It is said to have been built 
by the same maker and on the same lines, and Wash- 
ington may have ridden in it, but it never belonged 
to him. 

Most people think of Washington as a marble 
statue on a pedestal rather than as a being of flesh 
and blood with human feelings, faults and virtues. 
He was self-contained, he was not voluble, he had a 
sense of personal dignity, but underneath he was not 



ODDS AND ENDS 305 

cold. He was really hot-tempered and on a few 
well-authenticated occasions fell into passions in 
which he used language that would have blistered 
the steel sides of a dreadnaught. Yet he was kind- 
hearted, he pitied the weak and sorrowful, and the 
list of his quiet benefactions would fill many pages 
and cost him thousands of pounds. He was even 
full of sentiment in some matters; on more than one 
occasion he provided positions that enabled young 
friends or relatives to marry, and I shrewdly suspect 
that he engineered matters so that the beloved Nelly 
Custis obtained a good husband in the person of 
his nephew, Lawrence Lewis. I might say much 
more tending to show his human qualities, but I 
shall add only this : Having for many years studied 
his career from every imaginable point of view, I 
give it as my deliberate opinion that perhaps no man 
ever lived who was more considerate of the rights 
and feelings of others. Not even Lincoln had a 
bigger heart. 



CHAPTER XVIII 



THE VALE OF SUNSET 



WASHINGTON looked forward to the end 
of his presidency as does "the weariest trav- 
eler, who sees a resting-place, and is bending his 
body to lay thereon." "Methought I heard him 
say, *Ay/ I am fairly out, and you are fairly in; 
see which of us is the happiest," wrote John Adams 
to his wife Abigail. And from Mount Vernon Nelly 
Custis informed a friend that "grandpapa is very 
well and much pleased with being once more Farmer 
Washington." 

The eight years of toilsome w^ork, which had been 
rendered all the harder by much bitter criticism, had 
aged him greatly and this helped to make him doubly 
anxious to return to the peace and quiet of home for 
his final days. And yet he was affected by his part- 
ing from his friends and associates. A few partisan 
enemies openly rejoiced at his departure, but there 
were not wanting abundant evidences of the people's 

306 



THE VALE OF SUNSET 307 

reverence and love for him. It is a source of satis- 
faction to us now that his contemporaries reaHzed 
he was one of the great figures of history and that 
they did not withhold the tribute of their praise until 
after his death. As we turn the thousands of manu- 
scripts that make up his papers we come upon scores 
of private letters and public resolutions in which, in 
terms often a bit stilted but none the less sincere, a 
country's gratitude is laid at the feet of its bene- 
factor. 

The Mount Vernon to which he returned was 
perhaps in better condition than was that to which 
he retired at the end of the Revolution, for he had 
been able each summer to give the estate some per- 
sonal oversight ; nevertheless it was badly run down 
and there was much to occupy his attention. In 
April he wrote : "We are in the midst of litter and 
dirt, occasioned by joiners, masons, painters, and 
upholsterers, working in the house, all parts of 
which, as well as the outbuildings, are much out of 
repair." 

Anderson remained with him, but Washington 
gave personal attention to many matters and exer- 
cised a general oversight over everything. Like 
most good farmers he "began his diurnal course 



308 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

with the sun," and if his slaves and hirelings 
were not in place by that time he sent "them mes- 
sages of sorrow for thei"r indisposition." Having 
set the wheels of the estate in motion, he break- 
fasted. "This being over, I mount my horse and 
ride around my farms, which employs me until it 
is time for dinner, at which I rarely miss seeing 
strange faces. . . . The usual time of sitting at 
table, a walk, and tea bring me within the dawn of 
candlelight; previous to which, if not prevented by 
company, I resolve that, as soon as the glimmering 
taper supplies the place of the great luminary, I will 
retire to my writing table and acknowledge the let- 
ters I have received, but when the lights are brought 
I feel tired and disinclined to engage in this work, 
conceiving that the next night will do as well. The 
next night comes, and with it the same causes of 
postponement, and so on. . ^ . I have not looked 
into a book since I came home; nor shall I be able 
to do it until I have discharged my workmen, prob- 
ably not before the nights grow longer, when pos- 
sibly I may be looking in Doomsday Book." 

He had his usual troubles with servants and 
crops, with delinquent tenants and other debtors; 
he tried Booker's threshing machine, experimented 



THE VALE OF SUNSET 309 

with white Indian peas and several varieties of 
wheat, including a yellow bearded kind that was 
supposed to resist the fly, and built two houses, or 
rather a double house, on property owned in the 
Federal City — he avoided calling the place "Wash- 
ington." 

A picture of the Farmer out upon his rounds in 
these last days has been left us by his adopted son, 
George Washington Parke Custis. Custis relates 
that one day when out with a gun he met on the 
forest road an elderly gentleman on horseback who 
inquired where he could find the General. The boy 
told the stranger, who proved to be Colonel Meade, 
once of Washington's staff, that the General was 
abroad on the estate and pointed out what direction 
to take to come upon him. "You will meet, sir, with 
an old gentleman riding alone in plain drab clothes, a 
broad-brimmed white hat, a hickory switch in his 
hand, and carrying an umbrella with a long staff, 
which is attached to his saddle-bow — that person, 
sir, is General Washington." 

Those were pleasant rides the old Farmer took 
in the early morning sunshine, with the birds sing- 
ing about him, the dirt lanes soft under his horse's 
feet, and in his nostrils the pure air fragrant with 



310 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

the scent of pines, locu^ blossoms or wild honey- 
suckle. When he grew thirsty he would pause for 
a drink at his favorite gum spring, and as he made 
his rounds would note the progress of the miller, 
the coopers, the carpenters, the fishermen, and the 
hands in the fields, how the corn was coming up or 
the wheat was ripening, what fences needed to be 
renewed or gaps in hedges filled, what the increase 
of his cattle would be, whether the stand of clover 
or buckwheat was good or not. He was the owner 
of all this great estate, he was proud of it; it was 
his home, and he was glad to be back on it once 
more. For he had long since realized that there 
are deeper and more satisfying pleasures than win- 
ning battles or enjoying the plaudits of multitudes. 
An English actor named John Bernard who hap- 
pened to be in Virginia in this period has left us a 
delightfully intimate picture of the Farmer on his 
rounds. Bernard had ridden out below Alexandria 
to pay a visit and on his return came upon an over- 
turned chaise containing a man and a woman. 
About the same time another horseman rode up 
from the opposite direction. The two quickly ascer- 
tained that the man was unhurt and manasred to 



THE VALE OF SUNSET 311 

restore the wife to consciousness, whereupon she 
began to upbraid her husband for carelessness. 

"The horse," continues Bernard, "was now on 
his legs, but the vehicle was still prostrate, heavy in 
its frame and laden with at least half a ton of lug- 
gage. My fellow-helper set me an example of ac- 
tivity in relieving it of internal weight; and when 
all was clear we grasped the wheel between us and 
to the peril of our spinal columns righted the con- 
veyance. The horse was then put in and we lent 
a hand to help up the luggage. All this helping, 
hauling and lifting occupied at least half an hour 
under a meridian sun, in the middle of July, which 
fairly boiled the perspiration out of our foreheads." 

After the two Samaritans had declined a press- 
ing invitation to go to Alexandria and have a drop 
of something, the unknown, a tall man past middle 
age, wearing a blue coat and buckskin breeches, ex- 
claimed impatiently at the heat and then "offered 
very courteously," says Bernard, "to dust my coat, 
a favor the return of which enabled me to take a 
deliberate survey of his person." 

The stranger then called Bernard by name, saying 
that he had seen him play in Philadelphia, and asked 



312 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

him to accompany him to his house and rest, at the 
same time pointing out a mansion on a distant hill. 
Not till then did Bernard realize with whom he was 
speaking. 

"Mt. Vernon !" he exclaimed. "Have I the honor 
of addressing General Washington?" 

With a smile Washington extended his hand and 
said: "An odd sort of introduction, Mr. Bernard; 
but I am pleased to find that you can play so active 
a part in private and without a prompter." 

Then they rode up to the Mansion House and 
had a pleasant chat.* 

Upon his retirement from the presidency our 
Farmer had told Oliver Wolcott that he probably 
would never again go twenty miles from his own 
vine and fig tree, but the troubles with France re- 
sulted in a quasi-war and he was once more called 
from retirement to head an army, most of which 
was never raised. He accepted the appointment 
with the understanding that he was not to be called 
into the field unless his presence should be indis- 
pensable, but he found that he must give much of 



* This anecdote is accepted by Mr. Lodge in his life of 
Washington, but doubt is cast upon it by another historian. 
All that can be said is that there is nothing to disprove it and 
that it is not inherently improbable. 



THE VALE OF SUNSET 313 

his time to the matter and be often from home, 
while a quarrel between his friends Knox and Ham- 
ilton over second place joined with Republican hos- 
tility to war measures to add a touch of bitterness 
to the work. Happily war was avoided and, though 
an adjustment of the international difficulties was 
not reached until 1800, Washington was able to 
spend most of the last months of his Hfe at Mount 
Vernon comparatively undisturbed. 

Yet things were not as once they were. Mrs. 
Washington had aged greatly and was now a semi- 
invalid often confined to her bed. The Farmer 
himself came of short-hved stock and realized that 
his pilgrimage would not be greatly prolonged. 
Twice during the year he was seriously ill, and in 
September was laid up for more than a week. His 
brother Charles died and in acknowledging the sad 
news he wrote : 

"I was the first, and am, now, the last of my 
father's children by the second marriage, who re- 
main. 

"When I shall be called upon to follow them is 
known only to the Giver of Life. When the sum- 
mons comes, I shall endeavor to obey it with good 
grace." 



314 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

And yet there were gleams of joy and gladness. 
"About candlelight" on his birthday in 1799 Nelly 
Custis and his nephew, Lawrence Lewis, were 
wedded. The bride wished him to wear his gor- 
geous new uniform, but when he came down to give 
her away he wore the old Continental buff and blue 
and no doubt all loved him better so. Often there- 
after the pair were at Mount Vernon and there on 
November twenty-seventh a little daughter came as 
the first pledge of their affection. As always there 
was much company. In August came a gallant kins- 
man from South Carolina, once Colonel but now 
General William Washington of Cowpens fame, and 
for three days the house was filled with guests and 
there was feasting and visiting. November fifteenth 
Washington "Rode to visit Mr. now Lord Fair- 
fax," who was back from England with his family, 
and the renewal of old friendships proved so agree- 
able that in the next month the families dined back 
and forth repeatedly. 

Nor did the Farmer cease to labor or to lay plans 
for the future. He entered into negotiations for 
the purchase of more land to round out Mount 
Vernon and surveyed some tracts that he owned. 



THE VALE OF SUNSET 315 

On the tenth of December he inclosed with a letter 
to Anderson a long set of "Instructions for my 
manager'* which were to be "most strictly and point- 
edly attended to and executed." He had rented one 
of the farms to Lawrence Lewis, also the mill and 
distillery, and was desirous of renting the fishery 
in order to have less work and fewer hands to attend 
to; in fact, "an entire new scene" was to be enacted. 
The instructions were exceedingly voluminous, con- 
sisting of thirty closely written folio pages, and they 
contain plans for the rotation of crops for several 
years, as well as specific directions regarding fenc- 
ing, pasturage, composts, feeding stock, and a great 
variety of other subjects. In them one can find our 
Farmer's final opinions on certain phases of agri- 
culture. To draw them up must have cost him days 
of hard labor and that he found the task wearing is 
indicated by the fact that in two places he uses the 
dates 1782 and 1783 when he obviously meant 1802 
and 1803. 

There was no hunting now nor any of those other 
active outdoor sports in which he had once delighted 
and excelled, while "Alas ! our dancing days are no 
more." Happily he was able to ride and labor to 



316 GEORGE WASHINGTON— FARMER 

the last, yet more and more of his time had to be 
spent quietly, much of it, we may well believe, upon 
the splendid broad veranda of his home. 

Unimaginative and unromantic though he was, 
what visions must sometimes have swept through 
the brain of that simple farmer as he gazed down 
upon the broad shining river or beyond at the clus- 
tered Maryland hills glorified by the descending 
sun. Perchance in those visions he saw a youthful 
envoy braving hundreds of miles of savage wilder- 
ness on an errand from which the boldest might 
have shrunk without disgrace. Then with a hand- 
ful of men in forest green it is given to that youth 
to put a Continent in hazard and to strike on the 
slopes of Laurel Hill the first blow in a conflict that 
is fought out upon the plains of Germany, in far 
away Bengal and on most of the Seven Seas. For 
an instant there rises the delirium of that fateful 
day with Braddock beside the ford of the Monon- 
gahela w^hen 

"Down the long trail from the Fort to the ford, 
Naked and streaked, plunge a moccasined horde : 
Huron and Wyandot, hot for the bout ; 
Shawnee and Ottawa, barring him out. 



THE VALE OF SUNSET 317 

" Twixt the pit and the crest, 'twixt the rocks and 

the grass, 
Where the bush hides the foe and the foe holds the 

pass, 
Beaujeu and Pontiac, striving amain; 
Huron and Wyandot, jeering the slain." 

The years pass and the same figure grown older 
and more sedate is taking command of an army of 
peasantry at war with their King. Dorchester 
Heights, Brooklyn, Fort Washington, Trenton, 
Princeton, Brandywine, Valley Forge, Monmouth, 
Morristown, the sun of Yorktown; Green, Gates, 
Arnold, Morgan, Lee, Lafayette, Howe, Clinton, 
Cornwallis — what memories ! Lastly, a Cincinnatus 
grown bent and gray in service leaves his farm to 
head his country's civil affairs and give confidence 
and stability to an infant government by his wisdom 
and character. 

Here, with bared heads, let us take leave of him 
— a farmer, but "the greatest of good men and the 
best of great men." 

THE END 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Adams, Abigail, letter of husband to about Washington's re- 
tirement, 306. 

Adams, John: believes Washington was made by marriage 
with Custis money, 16; on Washington's retirement, 
306. 

Ague, prevalence of along the Potomac, 65. 

Alfalfa, see "Lucerne." 

Alton, John, a servant of Washington's, 170, 174, 175. 

Anderson, James : manager of Mount Vernon, 181, 182 ; sends 
list of the increase of slaves, 194 ; mentioned by Parkin- 
son, 276; remains with Washington, 307; final instruc- 
tions to, 315. 

Anna, brings indentured servants from Ireland, 167. 

Annals of Agriculture: used by Washington, 71, 72; nature 
of, 74; plan of drill pubHshed in, 107; Washington be- 
gins to read, 116; plan of barn in, 117; threshing ma- 
chine described in, 126. 

A Practical Treatise of Husbandry: used by Washington, 
71 ; its author, 7Z. 

Barrel plough: Washington makes one, 107; operation of, 
108-110. 

Bartram, John, Washington obtains plants from, 159. 

Bassett, Fanny, matrimonial adventures of, 177, 180. 

Bater, Philip, Washington agrees to let him get drunk on cer- 
tain days, 169. 

Bath (Berkeley Springs): Washington's land at, 28; Patty 
Custis taken to, 223. 

Bear, one chased by the hounds, 257, 

Belvoir, fox hunting dinners at, 258. 

Bernard, John, peculiar meeting of with Washington, 310-312. 

Bishop, Sally: Custis' story of, 171-173; marries Thomas 
Green, 173; later history of, 174. 

Bishop, Thomas, history of, 170-173. 

Bixby, Thomas K., owns the Lear papers, 86. 

"Blueskin," one of Washington's war horses, 132, 133. 

321 



322 INDEX 

Board of Agriculture : Washnigton elected honorary member 

of, 84 ; he is influenced by example of, 128. 
Booker, William : makes threshing machine for Washington, 

126, 127; mentioned, 308. 
Boston Athenaeum, buys Washington relics, 86. 
Boston, British frigate, Washington sells bull to, 144. 
"Botanical Garden": used for experimental purposes, 106; 

location of, 161. 
Boucher, Jonathan, teaches John Parke Custis, 225. 
Bowen, Cavan, indentured servant, bought, 167. 
Bowling Green : laid out by Washington, 154 ; mentioned, 161. 
Box hedge, doubtful histor3^ of, 160, 161. ^ 
Braddock, Gen. Edward: Washington joins staff of, 4, 5; 

Bishop his servant, 170; mentioned, 12, 316. 
Brents, Washington purchases, 17. 
Bruff, Thomas, amusing request for a loan, 291-293. 
Bullskin Plantation, Washington patents, 9. 
Burbank, Luther, mentioned, 107. 

Burnes, David, quizzes Washington about his marriage, 16. 
Butler, : a gardener, 161 ; dismissed, 183. 

Calvert, Eleanor : love affair with John Parke Custis, 225 ; 
letter of Martha Washington to, 226; for second hus- 
band marries Doctor Stuart, 231. 

Campbell's tavern, Washington in card game at, 250. 

Campion, , brings "Knight of Malta," 140. 

Cape of Good Hope wheat, Washington experiments with, 
105. 

Carrington, Mrs. Edward, describes Martha Washington's 
sewing activities, 232, 233. 

Carroll, Charles, Interested in Nelly Custis, 235. 

Carter, Charles H., returns a loan, 293, 294. 

Gary, freedman, death of at great age, 218. 

Cattle : poor quality of, 56, 57 ; number lost in twenty months, 
142; Washington's experiences with, 143 et seq. ; num- 
ber owned in 1799, 148; Parkinson's poor opinion of, 
276, 279. 

Chastellux, Marquis de: Washington describes to him the 
dehghts of his retirement, 5; letter of Washington to 
about inland navigation, 26; on Washington's horse- 
manship, 235. 

Chinch bugs, a bad year for, 104. 

Chinese geese, Gouverneur Morris sends some to Washing- 
ton, 147, 



INDEX 323 

Chinese pigs, a gift to Washington, 147. 

Christian, Mr., dancing master, 247, 248. 

Cincinnatus : Washington did not affect role of, 6 ; picture of 
the American at Mount Vernon, 131 ; mentioned, 317. 

Clifton, , fails to abide by a bargain with Washington, 17. 

Clinton, George : in partnership with Washington in a land 
speculation, 26; sends young trees and vines to Wash- 
ington, 155. 

Coaches : Washington's experiences with, 303, 304 ; mentioned, 
141. 

Compost, Washington experiments with, 92-94. 

"Compound," a jackass, 140. 

Congress, Washington recommends establishment of a board 
of agriculture to, 127, 128. 

Conservationist, Washington the first, 129. 

Copy-book, Washington's, verses quoted from, 5. 

Corn : some raised in Virginia, 51, 52 ; chief food of laborers 
and horses, 53; Washington's experience growing, 69; 
his opinion as to the proper time for planting, 105. 

Craik, Dr. James: tours western country with Washington, 
20 et seq., 27 et seq. ; physician to Mount Vernon, 195 ; 
fishes with Washington, 265; relations of Washington 
with, 296, 297. 

Craik, William, accompanies Washington on western trip of 
1784, 28. 

Crawford, Captain William : Washington's western agent, 19 ; 
descends the Ohio with Washington, 20; locates lands 
for Washington, 22; trouble of with squatters, 23; 
burnt at stake, 23; buys Great Meadows for Washing- 
ton, 29. 

Cross Purposes, Washington sees performance of, 245. 

Crow, : overseer, 183; not to be trusted with punishing 

slaves, 203. 

Cupid, near death of pleurisy, 196. 

Custis children : Washington guardian of, 14, 15 ; his ac- 
counts with the estate of, 81. 

Custis, Daniel Parke, first husband of Martha Washington, 
12, 220. 

Custis, Elizabeth, frequent visitor at Mount Vernon, 231. 

Custis, George Washington Parke: sees Washington fall 
from a horse, 133 ; story of Sally Bishop, 171 ; adopted, 
175; biography of, 227-229; spoiled by his grandmother, 
236; says "Magnolia" ran in a race, 252; account of 
French hounds, 259 et seq.; slays a stag, 268; story of 



324 INDEX 

Custis, George Washington MR-ke — Continued 

a black fox, 262 ; in error as to Washington's last hunt, 
264; leaves word picture of Washington out on his 
rounds, 309. 

Custis, John Parke: biography of, 225, 226; member of 
dancing class, 248; fox hunting with Washington, 256; 
deer hunting at Mason's, 257. 

Custis, Martha (Patty): hairpin of mended, 15; taken to 
Bath for her health, 28 ; biography of, 222-225 ; member 
of dancing class, 248. 

Custis, Martha, a frequent visitor at Mount Vernon, 231. 

Custis, Nelly : builds "Woodlawn," 63 ; adopted by Washing- 
ton, 175 ; is given Dogue Run Farm, 227 ; rebuked by 
grandmother, 235 ; compelled to practise music, 236 ; 
Washington dances with, 249 ; mentioned, 300 ; secures 
a good husband, 305 ; says Washington is pleased with 
being once more a farmer, 306; marriage of, 314. 

Cyrus, to be made a waiting man, 210. 

Dandridge, Martha, see "Martha Washington,'* 219. 

Darrell, : Washington buys land from, 9; mentioned, 17. 

Davenport, , dies and leaves family in distress, 187, 188. 

Davis, Betty, a lazy impudent huzzy, 199, 200. 

Davis, Tom, Mount Vernon hunter, 267. 

Davy: colored overseer of Muddy Hole Farm, 183; sus- 
pected of stealing lambs, 206. 

Deer: Washington's tame animals, 131, 267; deer seen on 
Ohio, 253; deer hunt at George Mason's, 257, 258; 
Custis shoots a buck, 268, 269. 

Dismal Swamp Company, Washington's interest in, 19, 33. 

Dogs, kill sheep, 55, 142, 143. See also "Hounds." 

Dogue Run, used as a mill stream, 97. 

Dogue Run Farm : described, 62, 63 ; rotation plans for, 120 ; 
sixteen-sided barn built upon, 124 ; excellent threshing 
floor of this barn, 125 ; rented to Lawrence Lewis, 127 ; 
conjuring negroes at, 213; given to Lawrence Lewis 
and his wife, 227; financial return from in 1798, 287. 

Dower negroes: belong to Custis estate, 14; number of in 
1799, 218. 

Drill, see "Barrel Plough." 

Duhamel du Monceau, Henri Louis, his treatise on hus- 
bandry abstracted by Washington, 71, 73, 74. 

Dunmore, Lord, issues a land patent to Washington, 25. 

Dutch fan, one owned by Washington at the time of his 
death, 128. 



INDEX 325 

Eastern Shore oats, wild onions picked out of, 111. 
Eastern Shore peas, experiment with, 105. 
Evans, Joshua, puts iron ring on Patty Custis, 224. 
Everett, Edward, buys the Pearce papers, 86. 

Fairfax, Anne: wife of Lawrence Washington, 10; marries 
George Lee and sells her life interest in Mount Vernon 
to George Washington, 11. 

Fairfax, Lord Thomas: employs George Washington as a 
surveyor, 9; vast land holdings of, 38; fondness of fox 
hunting, 255 ; hunts with Washington, 256. 

Fairfax, Sir William, father of wife of Lawrence Washing- 
ton, 11. 

Farmer's Compleat Guide: used by Washington, 71; ab- 
stracts from, 72. 

Federal Gazette, describes theatrical performance witnessed 
by Washington, 246. 

Ferry, bought of Posey, 17. 

Ferry Farm, bought by Washington, 17, 295. 

Fertilizer: experiments with marl, 95, 99, 105; with mud, 
102-104; experiment fertilizing oats, 112; Noah Web- 
ster's advanced ideas regarding, 118, 119; Washington 
wants a manager who can convert everything he 
touches into manure, 119; see also *'Compost" and 
^'Rotation of Crops." 

Fishery: bought of Posey, 17; description of, 65, 66; returns 
from in 1798, 287. 

Fitch, John, visits Washington to interest him in steam navi- 
gation, 240. 

Fitzpatrick, John C., on handwriting of the digest from the 
Compleat Guide, 72. 

Florida Blanca, helps Washington obtain a jackass, 137, 138. 

Flour: Washington's classification of, 98; excellent quality 
of, 98. 

Forbes, Mrs., Washington's inquiries about, 189, 190. 

Ford, Paul Leicester: opinion of remedies tried on Patty 
Custis, 223; on Washington's success as a farmer, 287. 

Fox hunting: account of Washington's experiences at, 255- 
265 ; mentioned, 100. 

Franklin, Benjamin: gives Washington a cane, 87; Washing- 
ton inspects mangle belonging to, 113. 

Frederick the Great, mythical story of his sending a sword to 
Washington, 86. 

French, Daniel, breaks contract for sale of corn, 79, 80. 



326 INDEX 

French, Mrs. Daniel, Washi^ton hires slaves from, 217. 
French, Elizabeth, member of dancing class, 248. 
Frestel, Monsieur, accompanies George W. Lafayette to 
Mount Vernon, 242. 

Garden: doubtful history of part of the flower garden, 160; 

the vegetable garden, 161. 
Gentleman Farmer, used by Washington, 71. 
George Barnwell, Washington sees tragedy of acted, 244. 
George, Prince, compared with Washington by Thackeray, 88. 
George III, contributes to Annals of Agriculture under pen 

name of "Ralph Robinson," 74. 
George Town oats, sown, 112. 
Golden pheasants, Washington astonished by, 148. 
Gough, : gives Washington a bull calf, 144; Parkinson 

thinks it a poor animal, 276. 
Graham, Mrs. Macaulay, visits Mount Vernon, 240. 
Great Kanawha : Washington visits, 21 ; land of upon, 21 ; 

hunts buffaloes near, 254, 255. 
Great Meadows, owned by Washington, 29. 
Greer, Thomas : marries Sally Bishop, 173 ; his laziness, 185 ; 

mentioned, 183. 
Grenville, Lord, issues special permit for sending seeds to 

Washington, 117. 
Guinea swine, some owned by Washington, 147. 
"Gunner," a hunting dog, 267. 
Gunston Hall, fox hunting dinners at, 258. 

Hamlet, Washington sees performance of, 245. 

Haw has : constructed at ends of Mansion House, 154 ; men- 
tioned, 156. 

Hedgerows, lines of still visible, 64. 

Hedges: traces of still discernible, 64, 162; history of, 162, 
163 ; see also "Box hedge" 

Henley, Frances Dandridge, marries Tobias Lear, 177. 

Hessian fly: Washington experiments to protect his wheat 
from, 95 ; plays into hands of by early sowing, 106. 

Hippopotamus, dredge used on Delaware River, 103. 

Hogs: described by Parkinson, 57, 58; Washington's, 131, 
145-147; large stock of in 1798, 148. 

Home, , his book on farming digested by Washington, 71. 

Horse-Hoeing Husbandry: used by Washington, 71; an 
epoch-making work, 73. 



INDEX 327 

Horses: in Virgmia, 53. 54; American described by Parkinson. 
rV- ' Washington's stallions. 131 ; brood mares bought 
by him, 132; his war horses, 132; thrown from a Narra- 
gansett, 133; his worn-out animals. 134; accidents to, 
134; his skill as a trainer of described by De Chastel- 
oTin 1799 m '" ^"^^"^^ months, 142; number 

Horticulture. Washington's activities in, 149 et seq 
Hounds: Washington builds up a pack of. 258 et *seq.; names 

Wnt^n^ ''''^n "l^ ^^i^""' ^W ^^^ ^"^"^h hounds, 259 et seq. 

Humphreys, Colonel: at Mount Vernon, 171; Smith fears he 
will write a poem, 173; poem of about Washington's 
slaves quoted, 211. ^ 

Hunt, Gaillard, on Washington manuscripts in the Library of 
Congress, 87. "^ 

Ice house, Washington's, 301, 302. 

Indentured servants: classes of, 165; Washington's dealings 

Jack, Mount Vernon fisherman, 267. 

Jackasses^ Washington's, 137 et seq., 148; stud fees of in 

Jackson, Andrew, ushers in an era of whisky drinkers, 300. 

Jetterson, Thomas: explains why land is misused, 53; agricul- 
tural correspondence with Washington, 83; carries 
bundle of pecan trees to Alexandria for Washington, 
159; opposed to slavery, 215. 

Johnson, John, brings nostrum for fits, 224. 

Johnston, George, sells land to Washington, 9. 
Jolly, a horse, gets leg broken, 134. 

Jones, , Washington visits farm of, 113. 

Knight, Humphrey, manages Mount Vernon, 178. 
Knight of Malta," a jackass, his history, 140, 141 
Knox, Thomas, one of Washington's English agents, 45, 46. 

"Lady," has four puppies, 259. 

Lafayette, George W., stay of at Mount Vernon, 241, 242, 300. 

Lafayette, Marquis de: visits Washington. 27 ; WashingWs 
letter to regarding "Royal Gift," 138; sends Washing- 
ton a jackass and two jennets, 140; last visit to Wash- 
ington, 240; sends Washington some hounds. 259. 



328 INDEX 

Lame Peter, taught to knit, 155. 

Laurie, Dr. James, comes to Mount Vernon drunk, 195. 

Lear, Lincoln, Washington's interest in, 175-177. 

Lear, Tobias : correspondence of with Washington published, 
86; biography of, 175-177; marries widow of George A. 
Washington, 177, 180 ; writes directions about Billy Lee, 
208; Washington explains to him his desire for selling 
western lands, 213; directed to get slaves out of Penn- 
sylvania, 216; letter of Washington to, 242; Parkinson's 
conversation with, 279; gives Parkinson money, 280. 

Lee, General Charles : story of Washington's loans to, 81, 82 ; 
mentioned, 317. 

Lee, George, marries widow of Lawrence Washington, 11. 

Lee, Henry : sends Washington cuttings of the tree box, 155 ; 
they show little signs of growing, 157. 

Lee, Robert E., Jr., adminstrator de bonis non of Washing- 
ton's estate, 35. 

Lee, William (Billy) : accompanies Washington to the Ohio, 
20 ; breeches bought for, 82 ; helps get Colonel Smith 
out of a scrape, 172-174; val de chambre, 193; history 
of, 206-209; freed, 218; acts as huntsman, 260, 261. 

**Leonidas," a stallion, 131. 

Lewis, Betty: visit of Washington to, 112; sends brother some 
filberts, 155; Washington gives her a mule, 298; men- 
tioned, 293. 

Lewis, Howell, manages Mount Vernon, 180. 

Lewis, Lawrence: builds "Woodlawn," 63; rents Dogue Run 
Farm, 127, 315 ; with uncle on a ride, 133 ; Washington 
expresses wish to that Virginia would abolish slavery, 
215; helps Washington entertain guests, 243, 244; pos- 
sible part of Washington in furthering love affair of, 
305 ; marriage of, 314. 

Lewis, Nelly Custis, see "Nelly Custts." 

Lewis, Robert : manages Mount Vernon, 180 ; describes tear- 
ful scenes on departure of Martha Washington, 237. 

Library of Congress, Washington papers in, 5, 85, 87, 90. 

Little Miami River, history of Washington's lands upon, 
34-36. 

Long Island Historical Society, Pearce-Washington papers 
in, 86. 

Lossing, Benson J., visit of to Mount Vernon, 160. 

Lucerne, Washington experiments with, 91, 92. 



INDEX 329 

McCracken, Washington buys land from, 9. 

McKoy, , overseer, 183. 

Madison, Dolly, did not invent ice cream, 302, 303. 

Madison, James: story of his ice house, 302; opposed to 
slavery, 215. 

"Magnolia": a blooded Arabian stallion, 131, 132; in a race, 
252. 

Magowan, Rev. Mr., sells lottery tickets, 251. 

Maid of the Mill, Washington witnesses performance of, 246. 

Mansion House: view from porch of, 64; bequeathed to 
Bushrod Washington,^ 84; Bishop starts for, 172; 
grounds of overrun with negro children, 191 ; hospital 
for slaves built near, 195 ; mentioned, 63, 267, 268 ; Ber- 
nard visits, 312. 

Mansion House Farm : described, 61 ; Washington will not 
rent, 127; bequeathed to Bushrod Washington, 178; 
financial loss on in 1798, 287. 

Manure, see "Fertilizer" 

Marl, Washington experiments with, 95, 99, 105. 

Mason, George: description of industry upon estate of, 40-43; 
is dead, 233 ; deer hunting at, 257, 258. 

Matilda's Ben, misbehavior of, 205. 

Meade, Colonel, visits Washington, 309. 

Mercer, John F., Washington's letter to about slavery, 213. 

Meteorological table, manager required to keep, 83. 

Michaux, Andre, botanist, brings pyramidical cypress from 
the king of France, 158. 

Military Company of Adventurers, Washington a member 
of, 19. 

Mill: Washington's mill on the Youghiogheny, 24, 30; his 
mill on Four Mile Run, 97 ; that on Dogue Run, 97, 98, 
182. 

Mississippi Company, Washington interested in, 10. 

Morgan, General Daniel: talks over inland waterways ques- 
tion with Washington, 28; mentioned, 317. 

Morris, Gouverneur: sends Washington Chinese pigs and 
geese, 146, 147; goes fishing with him, 265. 

Mosquitoes, prevalence of about Mount Vernon, 65. 

Mount Vernon : Washington retires to, 4 ; given to Lawrence 
Washington, 8; George Washington spends part of 
youth at, 9; early history of, 10; life interest of Anne 
Lee in bought by Washington, 11; estate, 16, 17, 20, 32; 
bequeathed to Bushrod Washington, 33 ; description of, 
60 et seq. ; visit of owner in 1781, 78; seeds sent by 



330 INDEX 

Mount Vernon — Continued 

Young reach, 117; Booker builds threshing machine at, 
126, 127; Washington attempts to rent, 127; Washing- 
ton's care for the lands of, 129; number of horses on in 
1785, 132; number of sheep on, 135; resounds with jubi- 
lant sounds, 140; number of oxen on, 144,208; house re- 
built, 151-153 ; successive managers of, 178-182 ; employ- 
ment of white labor at, 186; slaves seen at, 191 ; number 
of slaves on in 1786, 193; lot of slaves at, 211, 212; Ed- 
mund Pendleton at, 221 ; managed by Mrs. Washington, 
229; larders of kept well filled, 230; Custis grandchil- 
dren reside at, 231; visitors at, 240-242; dancing class 
meets at, 248; tea served on portico of, 252; fox hunt- 
ing dinners at, 258 ; the fisherman of, 267 ; described by 
Parkinson, 271 et seq., 291 ; Washington's estimate of 
probable crops on, 286; land of poor, 288; value of in 
1798, 288; coach shown there to-day not Washington's, 
304; Nelly Custis writes from, 306; condition of on 
Washington's retirement, 307; last months of owner's 
life spent at, 313; mentioned, 75, 78, 97, 101, 103, 130, 
208, 244, 291, 312, 314. 

Mount Vernon Association, 63. 

Muddy Hole Farm : described, 62 ; barrel plough used at, 110; 
its colored overseer, 183, 205 ; loss on in 1798, 287. 

Mules: Washington raises, 137 et seq.; proposes to drive 
them to his carriage, 139; number of in 1799, 148. 

Narragansetts, two bought by Washington, 132. 

Negroes, see "Slaves." 

"Nelson," one of Washington's war horses, 132, 133. 

New England, Washington's observations of agriculture in, 

115. 
Niemcewicz, Julian : describes condition of negroes at Mount 

Vernon, 197, 198 ; opinion of Nelly Custis, 227. 

"Old Chatham," a worn-out horse, 134. 

Overdursh, , Dutch redemptioner bought with his family, 

167. 

Oxen: used in farm work, 122; number of in 1785, 144; fat- 
tened and killed when eight years old, 145. 

Palatines: Washington considers importing, 24, 30; men- 
tioned, 167. 
Palmer, Jonathan, overseer, contract of, 185. 



INDEX 331 

arklnson, James : description of American live stock, 54-58 ; 
considers renting one of Washington's farms, 127; on 
Washington's tone toward his slaves, 202; his account 
of Mount Vernon and Washington's farming opera- 
tions, 270-280. 

atterson, John, paid for carpenter work, 153. 

caches, Washington raises, 149. 

earce, William : letters of Washington to, 86 ; describes poor 
condition of the sheep, 137; letter to about Bishop, 171 ; 
manages Mount Vernon, 181 ; overseers described to, 
183; letter from about the dead miller's family, 187; 
direction to about Cyrus, 209. 

erkins* Tavern, Washington stays over Sunday at, 116. 

eters, Richard: quoted regarding wolves, 56; sends plan of 
drill to Washington, 107. 

hiladelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, 
founded, 91. 

hillipse, Mary, Washington's alleged infatuation with, 170. 

iney Branch, turned into Dogue Run, 97. 

itt, William, a contributor to the Annals of Agriculture, 74. 

low: Washington invents one, 94; buys a Rotheran, 99. 

Delnitz, Baron, Washington inspects threshing machine be- 
longing to, 126. 

Dhick Church, Washington a vestryman of, 100. 

Dland oats, sown in experimental plot, 112. 

)nd, Rev., "lame discourses" of, 116. 

Dole, William, letter of regarding want of water in mill 
stream, 97. 

Dsey, Captain John: fox hunting with Washington, 256; 
Washington's relations with, 294; bankrupt and in jail. 
295, 296. 

)sey, Milly: member of dancing class, 248; stays at Mount 
Vernon, 295. 

)sey, St. Lawrence, Washington helps to educate, 295. 

)sey plantation, bought by Washington, 17. 

)tatoes: method of growing under straw, 112; quantity 
raised in 1788, 113. 

mdolph, Edmund, slaves of In Pennsylvania refuse to re- 
turn to Virginia, 216. 

idemptioners, a class of indentured servants, 166. 

chey, Matthew, Washington sells part of his western lands 
to, 32. 



330 INDEX 

Mount Vernon — Continued 

Young reach, 117; Booker builds threshing machine a 
126, 127; Washington attempts to rent, 127; Washing 
ton's care for the lands of, 129; number of horses on i 
1785, 132; number of sheep on, 135; resounds with jub 
lant sounds, 140; number of oxen on, 144,208; house n 
built, 151-153 ; successive managers of, 178-182 ; employ 
ment of white labor at, 186 ; slaves seen at, 191 ; numb( 
of slaves on in 1786, 193; lot of slaves at, 211, 212; E( 
mund Pendleton at, 221 ; managed by Mrs. Washingto 
229; larders of kept well filled, 230; Custis grandchi 
dren reside at, 231 ; visitors at, 240-242 ; dancing cla: 
meets at, 248 ; tea served on portico of, 252 ; fox hun 
ing dinners at, 258 ; the fisherman of, 267 ; described I 
Parkinson, 271 et seq., 291 ; Washington's estimate < 
probable crops on, 286; land of poor, 288; value of 
1798, 288 ; coach shown there to-day not Washington' 
304; Nelly Custis writes from, 306; condition of ( 
Washington's retirement, 307 ; last months of ownei 
life spent at, 313; mentioned, 75, 78, 97, 101, 103, U 
208, 244, 291, 312, 314. 

Mount Vernon Association, 63. 

Muddy Hole Farm : described, 62 ; barrel plough used at, 11' 
its colored overseer, 183, 205 ; loss on in 1798, 287, 

Mules: Washington raises, 137 et seq.; proposes to dri 
them to his carriage, 139; number of in 1799, 148. 

Narragansetts, two bought by Washington, 132. 
Negroes, see "Slaves" 

"Nelson," one of Washington's war horses, 132, 133. 
New England, Washington's observations of agriculture 

115. 
Niemcewicz, Julian : describes condition of negroes at Mot 

Vernon, 197, 198 ; opinion of Nelly Custis, 227. 

"Old Chatham," a worn-out horse, 134. 

Overdursh, ^ Dutch redemptioner bought with his fami 

167. 
Oxen : used in farm work, 122 ; number of in 1785, 144 ; f 

tened and killed when eight years old, 145. 

Palatines: Washington considers importing, 24, 30; mt 

tioned, 167. 
Palmer, Jonathan, overseer, contract of, 185. 



INDEX 331 

Parkinson, James: description of American live stock, 54-58; 
considers renting one of Washington's farms, 127; on 
Washington's tone toward his slaves, 202; his account 
of Mount Vernon and Washington's farming opera- 
tions, 270-280. 

Patterson, John, paid for carpenter work, 153. 

Peaches, Washington raises, 149. 

Pearce, William : letters of Washington to, 86 ; describes poor 
condition of the sheep, 137 ; letter to about Bishop, 171 ; 
manages Mount Vernon, 181 ; overseers described to, 
183; letter from about the dead miller's family, 187; 
direction to about Cyrus, 209. 

Perkins* Tavern, Washington stays over Sunday at, 116. 

Peters, Richard: quoted regarding wolves, 56; sends plan of 
drill to Washington, 107. 

Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, 
founded, 91. 

Phillipse, Mary, Washington's alleged infatuation with, 170. 

Piney Branch, turned into Dogue Run, 97. 

Pitt, William, a contributor to the Annals of Agriculture, 74. 

Plow : Washington invents one, 94 ; buys a Rotheran, 99. 

Poelnitz, Baron, Washington inspects threshing machine be- 
longing to, 126. 

Pohick Church, Washington a vestryman of, 100. 

Poland oats, sown in experimental plot, 112. 

Pond, Rev., "lame discourses" of, 116. 

Poole, William, letter of regarding want of water in mill 
stream, 97. 

Posey, Captain John: fox hunting with Washington, 256; 
Washington's relations with, 294; bankrupt and in jail, 
295, 296. 

Posey, Milly: member of dancing class, 248; stays at Mount 
Vernon, 295. 

Posey, St. Lawrence, Washington helps to educate, 295. 

Posey plantation, bought by Washington, 17. 

Potatoes: method of growing under straw, 112; quantity 
raised in 1788, 113. 

Randolph, Edmund, slaves of in Pennsylvania refuse to re- 
turn to Virginia, 216. 

Redemptioners, a class of indentured servants, 166. 

Richey, Matthew, Washington sells part of his western lands 
to, 32. 



332 INDEX 

River Farm : described, 61, 62 ;^nancial return from in 1798, 
287. 

Robert Cary & Company: English agents of Washington, 46, 
47 ; Washington falls in debt to, 48. 

Roberts, William M., amusing letter of, 188. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, transfers Washington papers to Library 
of Congress, 85. ^ 

Ross, Doctor, Washington asks him to buy him some white 
servants, 167. 

Rotation of crops: how practised in America, 52; Washing- 
ton's elaborate plans for, 120 et seq. 

"Royal Gift," a jackass, his history, 138-141. 

"Rules of Civility," quoted, 202. 

Rumney, Dr. William, physician to Mount Vernon, 195. 

Ryan, Thomas, indentured servant, bought, 167. 

"Samson," a stallion, 131. 

Seed: Washington anxious to have the best, 110: counts num- 
ber of grains in a pound of several varieties. 111; ob- 
tains some from England, 116, 117, 

Serpentine drive, laid out by Washington, 154. 

Shag, Will, a runaway, 203. 

Shaw, William, tutor to the Custis children, 175. 

Sheep: raising of not much attempted, 55; breeds of. 55; 
much troubled by wolves and dogs, 55, 56; Washing- 
ton's, 135 et seq. ; number lost in twenty months, 142 ; 
he suspects an overseer of stealing lambs, 206; Parkin- 
son's opinion of, 278, 279. 

Siberian wheat, experiment with, 105. 

Simpson, Gilbert, one of Washington's western agents, 23, 24, 
29, 30, 31. 

Sinclair, Sir John : Washington corresponds with, 83, 91 : 
helps obtain seeds for Washington, 117; Washington 
sends some American products to, 118. 

Sixteen-sided barn, mentioned, 62. 

Slaves : Washington inherits from his father, 8 ; some sent to 
the west to Simpson's, 23. 25; steal fruit, 156; as solu- 
tion of labor problem, 165; detailed account of Wash- 
ington's, 191-218. 

Smith, Colonel, adventure with Sally Bishop, 171-174. 

Smith, Thomas, Washington's attorney in case against the 
squatters, 32. 

Spears, Thomas, indentured servant, runs away, 168. 



INDEX 333 

Spotswood, Gen. Alexander, Washington's letter to apropos 
of slavery, 214. 

Sprague, William B., is given some of the Washington pa- 
pers, 85. 

Squatters : on Washington's western land, 22, 23 ; delegation 
from meet Washington at Simpson's, 31; dispossessed, 

Stallions, list of those kept by Washington, 131. 

"Steady," a stallion, 131, 284.' 

Stephens, Richard, his laziness, 186. 

Stewart, Robert, Washington's loan to, 293. 

Stuart, overseer, 183. 

Sullivan, Captain, interpreter of directions regarding "Royal 
Gift," 138. 

Swearingen, Captain van, accompanies Washington on mis- 
sion to squatters, 31. 

Sycamores, enormous ones measured by Washington, 22, 255. 

Thackeray, William M., quoted regarding Washington, 87, 88. 

Thomson, Charles, notifies Washington of his election to the 
presidency, 240. 

Threshing machine: Washington experiments with, 126, 127; 
owns one at time of death, 128; Parkinson says Gen- 
eral has two, 275 ; uses one of Booker's model, 308. 

Tobacco: place of in Virginia agriculture, 42-52; Washing- 
ton's experience with, 68; discontinues growing of, 69. 

Tom, sent to West Indies, 204, 216. 

Toner, J. M. : his transcripts of Washington papers, 79, 86; 
opinion of regarding inspection of Washington's flour 
in the West Indies, 98. 

"Traveler" : a stallion, 131 ; stud fee of, 287. 

Triplett, William, constructs outbuildings, 153. 

Tull, Jethro: his book on horse-hoeing abstracted by Wash- 
ington, 71, IZ ; some of his ideas, 75 ; quoted by Wash- 
ington, 92. 

Turkeys: Washington raises, 131, 147; wild variety men- 
tioned, 253. 

Union Farm : described, 61, 62 ; fishery on, 65 ; gully upon, (^', 
new brick barn after Young's plans built upon, 117; 
financial return from in 1798, 287. 

Virginia, agriculture and life in, 37-59. 

Virginia Almanac, weather record kept by Washington in, 80. 



334 INDEX 

Virginia Gazette, Washington advertises escaped servants in, 

167. 
Voilett, Edward, agrees to avoid stills, 169. 
"Vulcan," raid of on kitchen, 260. 

Waggoner Jack, sold in West Indies, 204. 

Walker, Ann, daughter of John Alton, receives a bequest 
from Washington, 174. 

Walpole Grant, Washington interested in, 10. 

Washington, Augustine, bequests of to George, 8. 

Washington, Augustine, Jr., daughter of describes Martha 
Washington's activities, 234, 235. 

Washington, Bushrod: accompanies Washington on western 
trip, 28; inherits Mansion House and papers, 84; fails 
to safeguard papers properly, 85 ; educated by his uncle, 
178; asked to make inquiries about Mrs. Forbes, 189; 
assisted by his uncle, 299. 

Washington, George A.: brings mahogany seeds from West 
Indies, 157; widow of marries Tobias Lear, 177; man- 
ages Mount Vernon, 179, 180; course of approved, 184; 
fox hunting, 263, 264; ill health of, 297; aided by his 
uncle, 299. 

Washington, Harriot, helped by her uncle, 299. 

Washington, John A., manages Alount Vernon, 177, 178. 

Washington, John A., inherits books and relics of Washing- 
ton, SS. 

Washington, John C, sells Washington papers to the na- 
tion, 85. 

Washington, Lawrence : inherits Mount Vernon, 8 ; influence 
of upon George, 9; biography of, 10; mentioned, 76. 

Washington, Lund: directed to set out trees at end of Man- 
sion House, 151 ; manages Mount Vernon during the 
Revolution, 179; Washington's generous dealings with, 
187; will inform owner of delinquencies of Roberts, 
189; opinion of Washington's charity, 230, 231; is dead, 
233; fox hunting with Washington, 256, 263; instruc- 
tions to concerning the poor, 298. 

Washington, Martha: marriage of Washington to, 12, 13; 
family of by first husband, 14; her financial affairs, 14, 
15 ', remembers when there was but one coach in Vir- 
ginia, 49; "broke out with the Meazles," 79; tradition 
concerning her authority over the flower garden, 160; 
Bishop threatens to tell of Colonel Smith's escapade, 
172; gives a quilt to her niece, 177; on the required 



INDEX 335 

work of the sewing servants, 199; chapter about, 219- 
238; keeps open house, 239; "Vulcan" steals one of her 
hams, 260; Parkinson's mention of, 274, 279, 280; her 
husband's care of her grandchildren, 298; drinks a glass 
of wine, 300. 

Washington, Mary: death of, 33; son visits, 112; son sends 
money to, 114, 298. 

Washington, Samuel, financial assistance received by from 
General Washington, 299. 

Washington, William: has charge of "Royal Gift" in South 
Carolina, 139, 140; visits Mount Vernon, 314. 

Washington, William A., George Washington buys corn from, 
69, 70. 

Watson, Elkanah, anecdote of visit to Mount Vernon, 244. 

Weather record, kept by Washington, 77, 80. 

Webster, Noah : says toast at Mount Vernon was "Success to 
the mud," 103; explains how fertility can be obtained 
from the air, 118, 119; visit of mentioned, 175, 240. 

Webster, William, indentured servant, runs away, 168. 

Western Lands, history of Washington's, 18-36. 

Wheat: how reaped and threshed, 51; Washington turns to 
cultivation of, 69 ; Washington rolls in spring, 95 ; his 
sales of before the Revolution, 96, 97; grinds into flour, 
97; excellent quality of Washington's wheat before the 
Revolution, 99 ; experiments with Cape of Good Hope 
and Siberian, 105 ; opinion as to proper time for sow- 
ing, 106; acreage in 1787, 113. 

White, Alexander, pays General Lee's debt to Washington, 82. 

White Chariot, history of, 303, 304. 

Whiting, Anthony: writes concerning worn-out horses, 133, 
134; instructed to cull out the unthrifty sheep, 136, 137; 
manager of Mount Vernon, 180. 

"Wilderness" : Washington sets out, 154 ; many trees dead in, 
156. 

Wine coasters, invented by Washington, 301. 

Witherspoon, John, Washington describes his western lands 
to, 25. 

"Woodlawn," home of Nelly Custis, 63, 227. 

Young, Arthur: letters of Washington to about his interest 
in farming, 1, 2 ; astonished that wolves and dogs hinder 
sheep raising in America, 55 ; Washington explains dif- 
ferences between American and European agriculture to, 
58; describes his estate to, 60 et seq., 127; his Annals of 



336 INDEX 

Young, Arthur — Continued 

Agriculture used by Washington, 71, 74; Washington's 
correspondence with, 83, 85, 91 ; sends inquiries regard- 
ing American agriculture, 84 ; obtains seeds for Wash- 
ington, 116, 117; sends plan for barn, 117; Washington 
sends agricultural information to, 118; Washington in- 
quires of regarding a threshing machine, 126; influence 
of upon Washington, 128; letter of Washington to 
about his sheep, 136; about his mules, 141; mentioned 
by Parkinson, 277. 



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